More Deadly
by Deb3
Summary: 17th in the Fearful Symmetry series: A serial killer is stalking Miami, but there's something different about this one.
1. Default Chapter

Title: More Deadly

Rating: R (disturbing case)

Disclaimer: They still aren't mine, obviously. If they were, certain of them would not exist, and Horatio and Calleigh would have been together long since. This series, however, is mine.

Pairing: H/C, naturally

Series: This is the 17th in the Fearful Symmetry series. Fearful Symmetry, Can't Fight This Feeling, Gold Medals, Surprises, Honeymoon, Blackout, the Hopes and Fears, Anniversary, Framed, Sight for Sore Eyes, Trials and Tribbulations, Premonition, Do No Harm, the CSI Who Loved Me, Complications, Yet to Be, and More Deadly.

A/N: Once again (see Framed chapter 4), I am indebted to Pam, the graphologist with whom I shared a Greyhound bus seat from Minneapolis to Kansas City, for giving me a crash course in graphology during the trip. Any errors are mine, not hers. Also, the opening scene of More Deadly is for koaladeb, who asked so nicely last spring in her review of Yet to Be. In general, I have no control over my muse, but once in a rare while, she will take a suggestion. Hope you enjoy it, kdeb.

The characters (H/C) are simply used as a scene divider. This stupid site has decided that it doesn't like my scene divisions and refuses to recognize them.

(H/C)

"The female of the species is more deadly than the male."

Rudyard Kipling, "The Female of the Species"

(H/C)

"Your turn," Horatio said, making no effort to get up.

Calleigh rolled to face him in exasperation, ignoring temporarily the urgent summons from the other room. "Now, Horatio, it is not my turn. It was my turn last time."

His eyes twinkled in amused dispute. "I took a turn later while you were in the shower."

The appeal from the next room persisted, and Calleigh sighed, scrambling to her feet. "Okay, okay. But remember this." She reluctantly left Horatio and Rosalind sprawled in the living room floor and trudged dutifully to the kitchen to answer the phone. It was the main phone, not one of their cells. "Who would call us this early?" She hoped it wasn't work. Work calls would more likely come on the cell phones after dawn, though, aiming for a possibly already moving target.

"Easy enough to find out." Horatio's velvet voice slid smoothly into the next room along with her, and she was smiling to herself as she picked up the receiver.

"Hello."

"Calleigh, hi. Hope I didn't wake you." The voice was familiar, but it took a second to sink in.

"Peter! I haven't heard from you in . . . " She hesitated, trying to come up with a time span. She and her brother talked more easily now than they had for many strained years, but their communication still was not often. Old habits, good or bad, linger past their usefulness.

He laughed, but she thought she detected a slight note of uncertainty behind it. "I know, I know. The prodigal brother. Did I wake you up?"

"Hardly. Rosalind believes in early mornings."

"How is she?"

"Wonderful." The tone said more than the word, and she heard Peter's answering smile, echoing her own across the miles, then heard the echo fade away.

"Calleigh, I was, um, wondering. . . " His voice trailed off.

"What is it, Peter?"

He switched tracks. "How is everything? I know I've hardly called you in months, but I didn't want to be in the way. You had enough to deal with. Are things better now?"

Calleigh turned around where she could see through the open arch into the living room. Horatio was on his back on the floor, Rosalind on his stomach. He was walking her up and down his body. Her legs weren't strong enough to support her yet, but his unfailing hands were there. He was holding her upright and smiling at her, and she was smiling back, keeping up a low stream of incoherent but pleasing sounds, like birdsong. "Everything is fine. Back to normal, only normal's improved these days."

"Good." The silence lengthened for a moment.

"Peter, what is it?"

He took a deep breath, like a swimmer about to dive in. "I've never seen my niece. I'd like to. Would you mind if I visited for a week or two?" Actually, none of Calleigh's remnant of family had seen Rosalind yet, her mother probably sharing Peter's motive of not wanting to bother her in those dark days when Horatio had needed almost as much care as Rosalind. Pitiful that her family automatically classified themselves as a burden, not a help to her. If Calleigh had had energy to spare at the time, she would have regretted it; as it was, she had been grateful for their insight. Now, though, it was the beginning of September, and those long days following Stewart Otis' escape and Horatio's injury were a slowly retreating memory, a shadow stretching away harmlessly behind them. The sun of Rosalind had risen in their lives.

"We'd love it, Peter. You need to get to know her." Calleigh was sure Horatio wouldn't mind her brother visiting. Family was the ultimate bond to him.

"Do you have room? I could stay in a hotel."

"No way. Didn't you learn anything about hospitality while we were growing up?" Calleigh's slight southern drawl deepened on the memories. "We've got plenty of room, Peter. We've reshuffled a bit, but we still have a guest room. When were you thinking of coming?"

"Next Friday?" Ten days away.

"That'd be great, Peter."

His tone relaxed a bit but not all the way. It wasn't just wanting her permission that had him edgy. "Thanks, Cal. I'll let you know when I have an ETA."

"See you then. Keep me posted." She heard her own echo of Horatio and smiled again.

"I will. Looking forward to seeing you. Bye." He hung up, and Calleigh studied the phone in her hand, wondering what he really wanted. Whatever it was, he wanted to talk about it face to face, with no added barrier of distance. The phone told her nothing more, and she hung it up finally and went back into the living room.

"Peter's coming?" Horatio asked. He had tracked her conversation, even while playing with Rosalind.

Calleigh folded herself down onto the floor beside him. "Right, next Friday. He wants to meet Rosalind."

"Good. Your family needs to know her." Rosalind with his considerable assistance tottered on unsteady legs back up his chest, and he scooped her tightly into his arms and sat up. "Do you want to meet your uncle?" She gave him a happy babble in response.

"Do you suppose that's yes or no?" Calleigh reached across and put one hand lovingly on both of them. "I can't wait until you start talking, Angel. Shouldn't be much longer."

"She has your voice," Horatio said, his own voice a low hum of approval. He and Calleigh were currently engaged in a friendly dispute over which one of them Rosalind took after more.

"Now how can you tell that, Horatio? She hasn't actually said anything yet, except to you." Rosalind did have her own special sound for Horatio, a sort of two-note hum that sounded exactly like notes on the piano, always the same two notes. She reserved it for him alone, and he never failed to respond to it.

"The tones. It's definitely your voice." He jiggled Rosalind, and she chattered back at him. "Hear that? Your voice."

"I don't think you've ever heard me say that, Horatio."

He grinned at her. "Try it then. Let's compare."

The morning was still early enough for nonsense to seem reasonable, and Calleigh obligingly gave it her best shot, not coming close in her opinion. Rosalind apparently thought so, too. She looked at her mother like she'd gone crazy, tilting her head slightly in a pose that looked years beyond infancy. "Definitely your head tilt," Calleigh said. "She never got that from me."

"I'll admit to the head tilt, but she's got your chin." He glanced at his watch and reluctantly got up. "Sorry, Rosalind, but I've got to finish getting ready for work." He started for the baby swing in the corner and just before he got there spun in a full circle, swinging his daughter around at arm's length. Her golden laughter lit the room, and Horatio looked back at Calleigh triumphantly. "Your laugh. Can't deny that one."

"My laugh?" Calleigh scrambled to her feet. "No way, Horatio Caine. You just haven't heard your own laugh enough over the years to recognize it." He had his back turned now, getting Rosalind situated in the swing, and she came up behind him and suddenly captured him, tickling him along the ribs.

"Calleigh!" He ducked away while turning to face her, but she was as quick as he was, and her fingers shifted but kept their purpose. He backed away, trying to escape, and she followed him, still firmly attached, rewarded by his reluctantly emerging laughter.

"Hear that? Your laugh. Same as hers, Horatio."

"Calleigh, stop it," he wheezed. He was almost helpless now, his body writhing beneath her touch but still trying to escape.

"Not until you admit it. She has your laugh." Her teasing fingers worked up his sides, conquering new territory in their tickling, and he backed away, desperately seeking escape, and tripped over the corner of the coffee table, falling flat.

Calleigh stopped instantly at the quick flicker of pain across his face. "Are you okay, Horatio?" He didn't answer but extended a hand to her, and she took it without even pausing for suspicion, trying to help him up. Instead, he pulled her down onto the floor with him, rolling over, pinning her as he got in some tickling of his own.

"We need you laughing, too, so we can compare."

"Horatio!" She, too, tried to escape, but he was relentless, and she was a helpless captive to his determination. Then she stopped trying to escape. Just when things were starting to get more interesting, they simultaneously remembered Rosalind, who would be watching as always. Horatio and Calleigh broke off in unison, flushed and a bit breathless, and looked up from the floor at their daughter, whose large blue eyes, identical to Horatio's, had tracked their every move. She looked like she thought they were both crazy now.

Horatio scrambled to his feet. "One of these days, Rosalind, you'll understand it. A long, long, long time from now." He walked over and plucked her out of the swing just as the phone rang.

"Your turn," Calleigh said instantly.

"That's my cell phone, anyway. Must be work." He fished it out of his jacket pocket with his free hand and instantly put on professionalism like a change of clothes. "Horatio." His head tilted slightly, and his eyes went distant. "Where are you?" His expression was dead serious now, and Rosalind, sensing the change in mood, reached out and wound her tiny fingers in that tantalizing red hair, giving it a gentle, questioning tug. Horatio smiled at her, but his eyes were still distant. Calleigh shook her head, amazed again at how perceptive Rosalind was at only 6 months old. She had no question which of them her daughter was more like.

"On my way," Horatio finished. He snapped the phone shut and came across to his wife. She took Rosalind from him. "There's a murder."

"Already? I guess everyone's getting an early start to this day."

"Actually, night shift has been working the scene for three hours already. Chris wants me to look at this one." Chris was the head CSI on night shift, working under Horatio's authority but quite capable in his own right. If he had called in Horatio, this case must be a special one, Calleigh thought.

"Did he say why he doesn't want to take it himself?"

"I didn't ask him. I'm sure he has a good reason. I'll know it soon enough." That was Horatio, giving his people the same absolute trust that they all had in him. He straightened his rumpled shirt meticulously and put on his jacket, looking nothing like a man who had been engaged in a tickling match in the floor five minutes ago. The seamless efficiency with which he could change gears always impressed her. Calleigh shook her head fondly, and Horatio caught her at it, though he had been half turned away. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said sincerely. "Absolutely nothing."

He came across and kissed her, lingering for another second. "I wish I could keep it that way," he said fervently, and she knew he was thinking of the city, not them. "After you take Rosalind to daycare, come join me." He gave her the address, then kissed his daughter, for that one second slipping out of professionalism again. "Have a good day, Angel." She gave her two-toned name sound for him, and he took her from Calleigh for a minute, hugging her tightly, then handed her back and purposefully headed out into the city, where many things on this morning were wrong. Not all of them could be fixed, but he would try.

(H/C)

Horatio approached the crime scene tape, having parked the Hummer well back. The uniform on guard there eyed him but did not question. Even if he hadn't known Horatio by sight, the badge was redundant. The set of the shoulders, the brisk stride, the angle of the head, and the alert sweep of the eyes, scanning everything yet intently focused, too, all announced his identity. The man simply oozed authority, and the officer stepped to one side without comment, allowing him to pass.

Chris was waiting, looking both pale from the scene and relieved at reinforcements. It must be quite a case, Horatio thought. Chris was usually unflappable. Actually, like many of the CSIs, he deliberately imitated Horatio, although Horatio, so perceptive normally, didn't recognize it. Horatio stopped and faced him, focused totally on receiving the report, putting off his own observations of the area for a moment. He trusted the work that Chris had done so far. "What have we got, Chris?"

"Body dump. Definitely killed elsewhere; there's dual lividity. We've been trying to process every inch, looking for any kind of trace from the car or the killer, but this alley is so dark, even with our equipment, I'd rather have it gone over again in daylight. Also, this one just feels serious." He caught himself, expecting Horatio to remind him that all murders were serious, but Horatio said nothing, accepting the statement at face value. Chris relaxed a bit. "I'd just like you to look at it. We've marked out a path two feet wide right over by the building, at the edge of the alley, going around the body and coming up from behind. Everybody's walked in that, as much as possible. I figure the killer took the direct way in, so we're trying not to contaminate that route."

Horatio nodded approvingly. "Nice work." He turned away from his coworker now, studying the alley and surrounding buildings. "Pretty deserted. This is all back door access to businesses. At night, not many people would be around. Who found the body?"

"We don't know," Chris replied. "Call to 911 from a pay phone, the phone right up on the corner there. A man just said there was a body here and hung up. We've processed the phone. Got lots of fingerprints, but he probably wore gloves if he was the killer."

"Probably some other criminal who happened across it. Killers have reported their own victims before, though. What about the body?"

"Still there. We're just about to move it. I was going really slowly on this one. It's so obviously an execution and body dump, I didn't want to miss anything. We've photographed every inch around him." They started down the alley together, walking in the designated path. "It's pretty bad, H."

Pretty bad was an understatement, Horatio thought a minute later. The man lay on his back, totally naked. His clothes, folded into a neat pile, were placed at his feet, shoes on top. The cause of death was obvious, a ragged, star-shaped wound to dead center of the forehead, but it was the other wounds that were more disturbing. The man still had the hair on his head – shiny, raven black hair – but the body hair had obviously been singed off, leaving none on the chest, arms, or pubic area. Slight scorch marks were visible. In addition, a much deeper burn, one straight line, ran down his sternum, and an X had been burned into each of his testicles. Horatio knelt at the body and simply studied it for several seconds, trying to absorb every detail. He studied the star-shaped wound of the forehead.

"Direct contact," Chris said, and Horatio nodded. In a direct contact gunshot wound, the gases from the gun barrel, unable to escape into the air, expand between the skin and bone, blowing out the skin in a star-shaped pattern. "The mob kills like that, but . . ." He trailed off, looking at the other wounds.

"This isn't a mob killing," Horatio agreed. "The mob kills, then leaves. That's all they want. This is obviously sexual."

Chris nodded. "This is a sick one, H."

"They all are," Horatio stated, "but some are sicker than others." The thought of Stewart Otis flickered through his mind quickly, then vanished. Otis was past harming anyone else. This killer was not. "Were the clothes folded just like that?"

"Right. We did check for a wallet. It's there."

"Money? Credit cards?" Horatio eyed the clothes.

"Everything. Still there. We're already running the ID. I'm surprised someone else didn't lift it. Obviously, this killing is sexually motivated, not robbery, but there are plenty of petty criminals around."

Horatio looked at the body again, at the mutilations. "I'm not surprised. If I were a petty thief and came across this, I'd run. Maybe it was a thief who called 911." The body haulers had come up the cleared path, and Horatio and Chris both stood and stepped back. "I agree, Chris, this scene needs to be covered in daylight. This one does feel serious. You've made an excellent start to it, though." Chris relaxed slightly, absorbing the sincere praise, then tensed up again in response as Horatio suddenly became intent. "Hold it. Stop right there." The quiet authority in Horatio's voice froze everyone at the scene. The body haulers were halfway in the act of rolling the body up to slide a body bag beneath it and zip it in. Horatio knelt again, peering into the space under the victim. "Camera, Chris." Chris collected a camera from another member of the night shift who was processing the alley and brought it back. Horatio focused and snapped. "Okay, pick him up and move him. Do not slide the body bag across here. Just move him over onto it." The body haulers complied, and Horatio and Chris absorbed the full impact of the handwritten note on the ground. Horatio took another picture. The body haulers finished their task and stared down at the note, riveted.

The script was careful, neat, and easily legible. "This is the first one to die."

Chris looked back at Horatio, doubly glad that he had called for his boss. "We've got a serial killer."

(H/C)

"This is Travis Fox, bringing you Miami at street level. Remember, for the best coverage of the crime scene in the city, follow KMIA for cutting-edge reporting, every day. I'm here at the scene of a murder investigation. Police have been reluctant to release many details, but it's rumored that Miami may have a serial killer on the loose. A body was discovered in an alley early this morning, with alleged information that there will be more. Is Miami in for a series of murders? Stay tuned for all the information as we receive it. This is Travis Fox, reporting for KMIA, one short step behind the police, one long step ahead of the other media. If you want the news first, you're on the right station. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're in luck. Calleigh Caine, renowned ballistics expert from CSI, has just arrived at the scene. Calleigh, can I have a word with you?"

Calleigh shot him a look of annoyed southern fire. Everyone on the force was familiar with Travis Fox, and most of them hated him. "I can't stop you."

"What makes you think that this killing is the work of a serial killer? Can you confirm that a threat for more deaths has been found at the body? What have you heard about the case so far?" He hesitated hopefully after each question, but the cameras trailing him only had an excellent shot of Calleigh's back as she strode purposefully toward the crime scene tape. "Calleigh? Can you tell us anything?"

She spun so quickly that he almost ran into her. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were the one who wanted to talk."

Fox smiled his practiced media smile, turning to give the camera a better side-by-side shot of the two of them. "The First Amendment provides rights to the media, Calleigh. I have business here, too, just like you do. The public would like to hear anything you can tell us about this case."

Calleigh straightened to her full height, such as it was. "I would be delighted to tell the public that, for the purposes of this breaking investigation, your First Amendment right to be here ends at this crime scene tape. Mine doesn't." She ducked neatly under it and walked up the alley without a backward glance. She heard that annoyingly suave voice continue behind her, smooth and unruffled as ever.

"And that's Calleigh Caine with CSI, folks. I'm sure you can see for yourself from her manner just how serious this case is. Yes, it looks like a serial killer may be at work in Miami."

Calleigh followed the marked path past a dumpster about 200 yards down the alley. This was where the body had been left, and Horatio was kneeling there, studying the ground, though the body was gone. He straightened up when he saw her. "Hey. What's wrong, Cal?"

Two words conveyed everything. "Travis Fox."

Horatio sighed. "He's here already?"

"Prompt as always. He said it looks like a serial killer, Horatio. Was that true or just media?"

His eyes flared briefly. "True, I'm afraid. We didn't need to advertise it yet, though. But how did he. . . " He stopped suddenly, then answered his own question. "The body haulers. They saw the note. They aren't detectives; $10 would probably buy a report on what they saw."

"What note?" He filled her in on everything so far. Typically, she went for the bullet first. "Was it a through-and-through head wound, Horatio?"

"No. Bullet's still in."

"On direct contact? Must have been a small caliber."

He nodded. "The entrance wound is blown out, of course, but we'll know from the bullet. My guess would be a .22. The mob often uses .22 handguns for executions. This wasn't a mob killing, but we know that can be lethal with a central head shot, and that bullet wouldn't exit, just richocet around."

"Smaller gun, too," Calleigh agreed. "Easier to conceal, gives the element of surprise."

Horatio gave her an approving smile. "That's a good point. Our vic was only average size. Could be a small perp, not wanting to risk a struggle. Not that I'm downplaying the physical abilities of small people, of course." His eyes measured her, diverting for a microsecond from the issue at hand.

"You wouldn't dare. I agree, though, it is a good possibility."

He retreated instantly back to the case. "Speed and Eric are on their way. They're going to process this alley in the daylight. Chris did a good job with it, but we can't afford to miss anything here. We need to head back to CSI. You can get the bullet from Alexx."

"What about you, Handsome?"

"I'll work on the note."

Side by side, they went back down the alley, effortlessly tucking together to stay in the narrow cleared path. The scene at the other side of the tape was almost comical. Travis Fox had hooked Speed as the trace expert arrived, and he was now interviewing him live, a very one-sided interview since Speed's entire contribution was a sullen glare of exaggerated patience. Fox never seemed discouraged, but he gladly switched to a more quotable source.

"Horatio, could I have a word with you? This is Lieutenant Horatio Caine, head of CSI." Calleigh rolled her eyes. She would be willing to bet that Horatio needed no introduction to most of Fox's viewership. Speed, taking advantage of the diversion, ducked under the tape. "Horatio, what can you tell us about this crime?"

Horatio waited politely until Fox had finished and the silence had lengthened a second. "Three things," he stated and then stopped, waiting to be prompted.

Fox never sounded annoyed, but Horatio could get to him sometimes. Horatio saw the repressed irritation in his eyes, but the reporter delivered his line obligingly. "What three things are those, Horatio?"

Horatio turned his shoulder slightly to Fox, focusing fully on the camera, addressing the audience. "A murder was committed this morning, we have a mountain of evidence from this scene, and that evidence will lead us to the killer." He turned away so quickly that Fox was stunned briefly into that unpardonable offense for the media, dead time. He quickly recovered, his voice sliding into action again even as his eyes followed Horatio and Calleigh toward the vehicles.

"And that's Horatio Caine from CSI. You heard it here, folks. There is a mountain of evidence, some of which reportedly indicates that this is the work of a serial killer."

(H/C)

The handwriting analyst studied the copy of the note. The original was in Trace, getting the ink and paper analyzed. She read it over several times, held a ruler to it, and then looked through it with blank eyes into the research books filed in her mind. Horatio waited patiently. She finally looked back up to him.

"Several things here, but the most striking is that this was written by a woman."

Horatio arched an eyebrow. "A woman? Only 8% of serial killers are women."

"Sorry, Horatio. I analyze writing, not statistics. It was written by a woman. I also think it was probably written by the killer, not by a woman on the killer's behalf."

Horatio agreed with that. "Hardly an innocent message for someone's girlfriend to write down."

"It's not just the content. Whoever wrote this was seriously disturbed. The writing is hypercontrolled, absolutely demanding control of the environment, and frustrated, too, of course. Nobody who demands this level of control in their life is normal or fulfilled. Totally upright letters on a level baseline. Most people's writing is looking forward, fewer people's looking back, but this person demands on controlling everything in the present. Absolutely refusing to settle for less. That total upright writing is very rare in the general public, more common in killers. There is intense sexual repression, too. Look at how tight and closed the loops are. Almost nothing below the baseline. I'd say this is a female, in good physical health, in the prime of life, probably single, and psychopathic."

Horatio absorbed it. Unlike psychotic people, who were truly insane, psychopathic people were fully sane but with no conscience, genuinely convinced that their own agenda rightfully took precedence over society's interests. Again, he thought of Stewart Otis briefly. "Bad combination."

"Definitely. There's one other thing, too. Very subtle but there." She tapped the note in front of the word first. "This is the first one to die," she quoted. "Notice anything about the spacing between the and first?"

He bent over her shoulder a little closer, studying it. "It's a bit wider. All the other word gaps are fairly consistent; that one is slightly stretched."

She was impressed once again at his perception. It was slight enough that most people would not have seen it, even prompted. "That's a lie."

"The whole note, or the word first?"

"The word first, specifically. When you are writing and you come to something you know is untrue, your mind checks slightly, acknowledging the lie. It happens even to chronic liars. Totally subconscious, almost impossible to avoid. The hand, however, keeps moving while the mind has hesitated, and when you start writing again, the gap is longer by the length of that millisecond of hesitation. Somebody who isn't used to lying can have a massive gap right in front of a written lie. This person is much more controlled and much more used to deception, but the mind still knows it's untrue. She hesitated right there, so that's the key word. First."

"You mean this isn't the first one?"

"Right."

He frowned. "I don't think we've had another one with the same M.O. or signature, though. Not recently, at least. I'll run it through all the databases." M.O. and signature were both crucial in tracking down serial killers. M.O. was the practical details directly involved in the crime, such as the weapon and the dumping of the body to avoid detection. Signature was the things not necessary to commit the crime or avoid detection, the extra things that the killer was still compelled to do to gain satisfaction from it, such as burning off the body hair and mutilating the genitals. The killer had control of M.O. but was controlled by the elements of signature.

"It might not be that she's killed before, although I'd say she's been dangerous for a while. Nobody gets this obsessively psychopathic overnight. But to her mind, it doesn't start with this death. Maybe someone else killed, and that somehow started her off."

Horatio nodded, mentally filing it. "We'll check it out. Maybe we can tie it to something in her past once we have a suspect." He tilted his head and looked back at the note. "Are you sure that couldn't be faked?"

"The spacing? No way. It's deeply subconscious. If you did know about it and decided to put a ruler to the words and write totally evenly, that would show up as a break in rhythm. You can tell when something was written one word at a time, as opposed to a sentence. This is definitely a sentence. I'm a bit surprised she was stupid enough to leave a sample of her own handwriting. From what I've heard, the body was cleaned pretty carefully."

"That's the ego. None of them ever think they'll be caught." Horatio gave her an icy smile. "They're wrong, like this one will be. Thank you, Charlene." He was out the door before she could respond.

(H/C)

Calleigh ran into him in the hall of CSI, and they walked along together. "Got the bullet, Handsome. It is a .22 but pretty banged up. What about the note?"

"Still working on the trace, but we have several things from the handwriting. Most interesting, our killer is a woman."

Calleigh stopped, turning to face him. "A woman? Most serial killers are men. Is Charlene sure?"

"Positive." His eyes met hers directly. "They're rare, Calleigh, but they're much harder to catch, and they can be even more deadly. The average body count for female serial killers is 8 to 14; average for males is 8 to 11."

"And we just have the first one."

"Maybe." He explained about the spacing before first. "So we're not sure on the body count at this point. One thing I am sure of, though." His eyes looked beyond CSI, out to wherever the killer lurked. "The evidence will still lead us to the killer, male or female." He turned and resumed walking, heading for Trace. Calleigh walked along with him in purposeful silence, two minds fixed on the same goal. As they passed the break room, a familiar, annoyingly smooth voice floated out like false evidence contaminating their case, and Horatio flinched.

"This is Travis Fox with KMIA, reporting live from the scene where a serial killer struck this morning."

Horatio spun smoothly and stopped in the doorway. "Turn that off." The four CSIs in the break room fell over each other reaching for the remote. Fox's voice died in mid word. Horatio gave them a general nod. "Thank you." He turned and resumed his journey. He did not specifically tell them to get back to work, but Calleigh looked back to see four CSIs meekly leaving the break room, heading back to their duty stations, duly reprimanded without Horatio's even having raised his voice. Horatio and Calleigh separated at the end of the hall, him heading for Trace, her for Ballistics, to follow the evidence. Somewhere out in Miami, a killer was loose, and the frightening thing was just how much truth for once there might be in Travis Fox's reports.


	2. More Deadly 2

"Female serial killers account for only 8% of all American serial killers, but American females account for 76% of all female serial killers worldwide." FBI Behavioral Unit statistics.

(H/C)

This is the first one to die.

Horatio stared at the note. Magnified, it still said the same thing, and if it was a lie, it was only by being an understatement. A cold finger of fear for Miami ran down his spine, and he forced himself to push the implications aside to focus fully on the evidence. Methodically, he teased out the details of anything else the note had to tell them.

Unfortunately, that wasn't much. The paper was available prepackaged at thousands of stores. The ink was equally common. Most interesting to Horatio, there were no fingerprints of any sort on the note. He stared at his own fingers in the latex gloves and flexed them. Handling a single sheet of paper, removing it from the packaging, and then writing a note with gloves on would be difficult unless the gloves were very thin and flexible, like his, probably bought specifically for the purpose. She had taken careful precautions, but she had still left a sample of her handwriting. He chased that trail mentally for a minute, coming up with a perp who had the monumental ego common to practically all murderers but who had read enough books to know to avoid fingerprints. The writing meant nothing, she thought, without a sample to compare it to, and she never planned to be caught. Maybe she even did not know how to type or had no access to a computer or typewriter. Prime of life, Charlene had said, and Horatio recognized already that she was a very organized killer. Organized serial killers plot, plan, and go carefully, taking steps to avoid detection. Disorganized killers take no such precautions, killing in a frenzy and usually leaving the body at the scene of the crime, escaping as much by luck as skill. Most organized killers appeared functional on the surface, with a job. She probably had a job, but whatever it was, Horatio doubted it involved typing or easy access to a computer or typewriter. She also probably had no home computer. These days, that certainly narrowed it down. Point to keep in mind to match with suspects.

Speed and Eric interrupted his thoughts, coming in and depositing their field kits on the layout table. Horatio looked up at them. "What did you get?" If they hadn't gotten anything at all, they hadn't done their jobs. Even book-reading perps left evidence.

Eric answered. "Slight leaks from the car. Probably the perp's car; they were right on the surface of the pavement. Hadn't been there long. It drove up the alley from the street and stopped there, sitting for a long time. We found the usual assorted alley junk, including three pennies, one nickel, an old broken comb, and a syringe. Printing those won't be fun. We also found a bit of plastic stuck to some tar or something. That was right where the passenger's door would have opened." Eric fished out a piece of one of those ubiquitous blue Wal-Mart bags, a slightly jagged piece. "He could have worn them around his feet, to keep from leaving trace from his shoes. Stepped in something spilled there while he was getting the body out of the car, jerked his foot free, and the bag tore and left a piece of plastic."

"Nice work. Except for one thing. This killer isn't a he."

Speed looked dubious. "A female serial killer? They're almost all male."

"The handwriting on the note was from a woman."

"Could be from a woman he knows."

Eric shook his head. "Do you know any woman who'd write that message for you and not get suspicious?"

"Well," Speed started, and Horatio cut in smoothly.

"Why don't you answer that, Eric? You have the most experience of us in that field."

Eric grinned, acknowledging the jab, but then seriously thought about it. "No."

"Besides," said Horatio, "the writing gave us other clues that the killer wrote it. Until proven otherwise, we're considering this one a female."

"Maybe she's trying to get revenge on men," Speed suggested, thinking of the mutilations.

Eric shuddered. "Glad I broke up with Rose months ago." The other two looked puzzled. "She drove a Volkswagen."

Speed nodded as the light dawned. "Top choice for cars among serial killers."

"Getting back to the evidence we have," Horatio reminded them, "nothing of interest on the note other than the handwriting. I think it suggests that she might not have easy access to a computer at work or home, though." Speed's expression abruptly reminded him of the day Horatio had commented on detection without cell phones. "So, here's what we do. Eric, work on processing the prints from that pay phone. I doubt that call was from the killer, but if the person who found the body has a record, he might be in the system. Speed, work on what you found in that alley. I'm going to go talk to Alexx. Keep me posted." He left, and Eric and Speed settled to work. Eric finally broke the silence.

"You're probably safe, man. Breeze rides a bike."

Speed almost smiled, picturing hauling a body around on a bike. "Yeah, I don't think I need to worry." His grin faded abruptly. "What if this killer really is trying to get revenge on men?"

Eric studied the pile of lifters and evidence envelopes. "Then we'd better solve this one quickly."

(H/C)

Alexx had respectfully covered the body with a sheet, and she pulled it back but did not totally remove it as they talked. "All of the hair was singed off. I think that might have been done with a cigarette lighter. It could have been one of those candle lighters, but the length would make it harder to do this much tight detail work. Something with a short flame that she could manipulate and hold easily, anyway. This took a lot of time, and the killer was being precise with it. She scorched the skin some, but she was trying to damage it as little as possible."

"Maybe she was setting the effect, making the deeper burns stand out more." Horatio was thinking out loud. "The time that took, though, almost reminds me of the patience of a bomber. She actually enjoys intricate work like that."

Alexx nodded. "This one scares me, Horatio." Like him, she was thinking of the city. "The deeper burns could have been done with the same tool with longer exposure time. That streak down the sternum goes third degree."

"Totally straight and centered, though," Horatio said. "Again, the attention to detail. It could be labeling him as first. Charlene said the killer was insisting that he was the first victim, even though he wasn't, to her mind. That could be a tally mark. I hope we don't see enough more to find out." Both of them shivered slightly in the cool autopsy bay, imagining bodies piling up with the killer's neatly labeled score on each, the count steadily rising.

Alexx gently replaced the sheet and unfolded a different section. "The burns into the testicles were third-degree, too. They were the deepest of all. Still precise, but she was enjoying that. She went way beyond just marking the skin."

Horatio considered it. "Perfect X's. She was trying to eliminate his maleness. The hair, the genitals. Did he fight her at all?"

Alexx shook her head. "Nothing under the nails. BAL was 0.130, though. He wasn't nonfunctional, but he wouldn't be on guard. Other than the gunshot, all injuries were postmortem. There's dual lividity, too. He was shot seated, then moved to his back later. I think she washed the body. No trace we could find, except for the feet." She uncovered the feet, revealing a few dark streaks. "I took samples of that and sent them up."

Horatio bent to inspect the feet more closely. "Looks like he was dragged along pavement, possibly when she was taking him out of the car." He backed up a step, measuring Alexx. "Did you have any trouble handling him, Alexx?"

"No, but I wasn't dumping him in an alley in the dark. Besides, practice makes perfect. I've moved more dead men than she has. He doesn't weigh all that much, though."

"She's small," Horatio stated definitely. "That's probably why she picked such a deserted alley, to give herself plenty of time to stage everything. She knew it would take her a while. Probably also explains the alcohol. She picked him up somewhere and got him drunk enough to relax. She doesn't want a physical fight. I'd be willing to bet the next victim, if there is one, will be a smallish male, possibly with black hair. Anything more on the gunshot wound?"

"The wound was direct contact, and the bullet ricocheted around in the cranium. I gave it to Calleigh. He last ate about three hours before his death, and I'd say he died at least 36 hours ago. Rigor has completely worn off." She picked up a hand, and the wrist flexed freely. "Factoring in the time we found the body, he died sometime night before last."

"How long do you think it would take to do the mutilations and wash the body?"

"Total guess, Horatio, but at least several hours. She wasn't in a hurry. Either she doesn't have a job or she didn't sleep."

"Or she had yesterday off." Horatio's cell phone rang. "Excuse me, Alexx. Horatio."

"Tripp." The gruff voice needed no identification. "I've got the next-of-kin on the victim."

"He's been dead since night before last, Tripp. Didn't they miss him?"

"Family was out of town. Wife is back now. Son is in college but coming home. You want to come talk to them?"

No, Horatio thought. He hated speaking to next of kin, but he rarely missed the opportunity. All deaths leave evidence, he thought. There was the physical evidence the CSIs used to convict, and then there was the living, wounded evidence in people's lives, the fighting to go on with a piece of their hearts ripped away. He wished he could heal their pain completely by closing a case, but he could at least start the process in the one way that he was uniquely qualified for, letting them know they were not alone. "On my way, Tripp." He pocketed the phone, his eyes distant. Alexx recognized the expression and gave him a sympathetic smile. He caught it and instantly snapped back to himself, refusing sympathy when others were in greater need of it. "Thank you, Alexx. See you later." He left the autopsy bay but hesitated slightly, then turned toward Ballistics.

(H/C)

Calleigh studied the bullet through the microscope. She kept turning it, looking for anything she had missed. His silent footsteps approaching behind her reverberated through her soul, and she turned to greet him. "Hey, Handsome. How's it going?"

"Not much from the paper. The boys found a few things at the scene, though. They're working on it. What about the bullet?"

"Pretty mangled, I'm afraid. It didn't have enough force to exit, but it bounced all around. It would be hard to get a 100% match to the gun from this." She hated admitting it, but it happened sometimes. Calleigh always took it personally, though.

Horatio grinned at her. "If you can't, I'm sure no one could."

She studied him. "Were you going to see the next of kin?"

"On my way now. I wanted to see how you were coming along with the bullet, though."

She removed it from the microscope and filed it carefully in a container. "I'm done here, Horatio. I'll go with you."

"You sure? I don't want to pull you away from what you should be doing."

She punched him lightly on the arm. "Come on, Horatio. Tripp's probably waiting for us."

He followed her meekly out the door of Ballistics. "Thank you, Calleigh."

"Anytime, Handsome." She accented the first word pointedly, and he reached out to touch her back, tracing his fingers lovingly down her spine. The next second, his touch was gone, but his presence wasn't. Together, they headed out to the garage.

(H/C)

Angelina Waters sat on her couch numbly, staring at a picture on the wall. She and her husband, together, happy. "I was visiting friends out of town. I called last night, but he liked to go out for a drink sometimes. He would get home late. I didn't think anything of it." She shivered. "He was probably already dead, wasn't he?"

"I'm afraid so, Mrs. Waters." The infinite compassion in Horatio's tone reached through the darkness a bit, and she looked at him. "There's no way you could have known."

Tripp was sitting awkwardly on the very edge of an armchair. He hated these encounters as much as Horatio did, and he was glad his friend was there. Conveying sympathy wasn't one of Tripp's better skills. "Where did he like to go out for a drink?"

She made a small, helpless movement with her hands. "I don't know. It was something he did by himself. He said it was a guy thing, that everybody needed time." Out of long habit, her mind shied away from any suspicion. "He always came home. He never drove drunk, either. Always took a cab when he needed to." She looked up at them. "He was a good husband. He always came home eventually." Horatio and Calleigh looked at each other silently, mutually disagreeing with that definition of marriage, then quickly returned their full attention to her.

"Did he have any enemies that you know of, Mrs. Waters?" They had to ask, even though they thought it would be a dead end.

"No. Everyone loved him."

"What was his job?"

"He was an insurance agent." She gave the address of his office, and Tripp wrote it down, then stood up. They wouldn't get much useful information here. Maybe his office would be a better source. No man is flawless to his secretary.

Horatio had come to the same conclusion, but he leaned forward in his chair, establishing eye contact again. "I am sorry, Mrs. Waters." He shook her hand carefully, as if it were fragile, then stood. "We'll let you know when we catch the killer."

The three officers walked outside, shaking off the stifling shadows of the house and letting the sun warm them for a moment. "She didn't want to know anything about it," Calleigh said. "She's just mourning her image of him. She didn't really wonder who killed him."

"It's still mourning," Horatio replied.

Tripp shook his head. Dodging reality wasn't something he understood, either. "You comin' along with me to talk to the secretary, H?"

Horatio shook his head. "I think we'll go back to CSI and . . ." His voice trailed off as his annoyance switched on. Calleigh and Tripp followed his eyes to see the KMIA remote van pulling up. Horatio's tone was deadly when he spoke. "He's got another source somewhere in the department. He didn't get this address from the body haulers."

"Most large rocks have a few things crawling under 'em," Tripp grunted. "I'll call for backup. We can get somebody to stay here and keep him away from the widow."

Horatio turned to Calleigh. "Cal, will you go back to the house and stay with that poor woman while backup is coming? I'll hold him off."

Travis Fox, blinding media smile firmly pasted on, was heading toward them as his crew unpacked the camera. "Frank, Horatio, Calleigh, can I get a statement?"

Tripp took long enough to make sure that the cameras weren't switched on yet. "Go to hell," he said succinctly and stalked off toward his car.

Undaunted, Fox turned to Horatio. Calleigh touched her husband lightly on the arm, then melted away, retreating up the sidewalk to the house. Her ears were intently focused behind her, though, listening as long as she could. Fox's voice grated on her. As always, he used first names only, assuming a status that did not exist. "Horatio, what can you tell us? How is the investigation proceeding?"

As always when he was angry, Horatio's tone was even quieter. "I don't think a statement from me is necessary. I couldn't begin to top Detective Tripp's."

Calleigh was smiling as she reached for the doorbell.

(H/C)

Many fruitless hours later, Calleigh trudged up the sidewalk toward her own house. Tripp was tracking contacts the secretary had mentioned but with nothing useful yet. The CSIs were still working on the evidence. Calleigh had spent the entire afternoon with Mrs. Waters, who reminded her progressively of her mother, lost in her own world, believing only what she wanted to. Even if her husband was cheating on her, though, that didn't mean that his mistress had killed him. Probably, the killer had selected him for height, hair color, or simply opportunity. After reinforcements arrived, Horatio had gone back to CSI at Calleigh's insistence, since the Waters' son would be there soon. Actually, it had taken the son hours to arrive, by which point Calleigh was ready to tear her hair out. Then, she had to go by the grocery store on the way home. At least Horatio had promised to pick up Rosalind, so that was one stop she didn't have to make. Now, dragging herself up the sidewalk, Calleigh wondered just how many of the brain cells she had started that morning with had survived this day.

Like a breath of fresh air, music floated out of the house when she opened the door. She stood there for a minute, letting it wash over her soul and cleanse her of the debris of the day. Horatio looked across and smiled at her, and her answering smile reassured him. He was playing the piano with Rosalind sitting in his lap, securely framed by his arms. He reached the end of the piece and stopped. "Hi. Survive your afternoon?"

"Still checking, but I think so."

"I should have stayed." His tone was apologetic.

"No, you were needed back at CSI. You couldn't know it would be that long."

Rosalind suddenly reached out and banged both hands on the piano, sending crashing dissonance through the house. "Hey, Angel, quit it," Horatio said. He reached around her and started playing again, and she instantly pulled her hands away. She wasn't trying to make noise, simply protesting the fact that the music had stopped. She never touched the keyboard while he was playing.

"Any progress?" Calleigh asked, dumping her sacks on the table and pulling out the milk.

"Nothing definite. The clothes were washed, just like the body. This one is careful, Cal."

Calleigh shut the refrigerator and went back into the living room. "Not careful enough."

"Right. We'll get her. I hope it won't take long, though." He resolved the harmonies and stopped playing again. While Horatio was perfectly capable of doing several things at once and doing them well, he always preferred to give full focus to someone in a conversation. "Did you manage to get anything useful out of the wife?"

"No. He was the perfect husband."

"The perfect husband who went out drinking alone often and didn't get home until late." Rosalind reached out and started banging the keys again, and he closed his hands gently over hers. "Sorry, Rosalind. I'll play more for you later." He turned around on the bench so that the keyboard wasn't in front of them anymore, and Rosalind let out a quick squeal of protest. She didn't start crying – she rarely did – but her feelings were clear. "I need to help your mother put up the groceries and fix supper."

Calleigh smiled at both of them. "You know, I used to dream of hearing my husband call me 'your mother' when he was talking to my children." He smiled back at her, but then the smile flickered briefly. "What is it?"

"I was just wondering." He trailed off into silence.

"Wondering what?"

"Calleigh, do you ..." He hesitated again.

"Horatio, honestly, talking to you is like pulling teeth sometimes. What is it?"

"Do you want to have more children?" His blue eyes locked on hers, carefully watching for her reaction.

"Maybe someday, but not soon, if at all. Do you?" She could already read his answer, though. He had relaxed with hers.

"Maybe. I'm not sure." He looked down at Rosalind, and his arms tightened around her. "We've been through so much this year, and I just want to enjoy what I've got. Every day with the two of you is a blessing. I don't want anything more. I don't want to change it."

Calleigh came across to sit on the piano bench, and he slid over to make room for her, then leaned into her. "Horatio, I feel the same way. Believe me. Let's give ourselves time to catch our breath and enjoy life now. Maybe, someday, I'll want another child, but not right now. All I want is the two of you." She put an arm around him, squeezing him even closer against her, remembering almost losing both of them. Even with Horatio well and whole beside her, she would never forget the first part of this year.

He kissed the top of her head. "I just don't want to deny you something that would make you happy."

"You make me happy, Horatio. You and Rosalind. I've never been more happy in my life."

"Neither have I." He kissed her again, and the kiss quickly deepened until Rosalind interrupted it by starting to squirm. She'd long since gotten tired of watching her parents kiss and was quickly bored with it. Horatio laughed and stood up, hoisting her toward the ceiling, then pulling her back safely against him. "Like I told you this morning, Angel, someday, you'll understand it. Now, let's see about something to eat."

Calleigh stood herself and stretched the remaining kinks of stress out of her body. "Why don't you just play for her some more, Horatio? Play for both of us. I'll take care of cooking. I think this day could use some music, and it hasn't had much."

"That it hasn't," he agreed, his eyes going to the window, looking out toward the city. "I hope nothing happens tonight."

"There's a great line to say to your wife."

His attention jumped back to her instantly. "I didn't mean that."

"I know, you fool. Now play for your daughter." He sat back down at the piano, and Rosalind gave a delighted hum, then leaned back against him, perfectly still and not interfering, as his fingers started to draw the music out of the piano. Calleigh started unpacking the groceries, letting the melody flow over her. He had picked Pachelbel's Canon, and she followed the lyrical, peaceful, growing intricacy, where everything made sense and life was beautiful. Tomorrow would bring the case again, but tonight, as she worked in the kitchen, Calleigh found herself humming along, and the last of the stress of the day unknotted and fell harmlessly away from her.


	3. More Deadly 3

"Typically, serial killers keep on killing until they're caught. Serial murder is an addiction to these guys. It starts out as an urge, then it becomes a compulsion, and eventually it becomes an addiction." Mike Rustigan, Professor of Criminology, San Francisco State University.

(H/C)

The thief stared at his hands, at the table, at the blank walls of the interrogation room, anywhere except at those blue eyes. He couldn't escape them. "I swear, man, I mean Lieutenant, I didn't do nothing. I was walking along minding my own business. I found a body, and I called 911."

Tripp gave a dubious grunt. "Walking along minding your own business at 3:00 AM in a deserted alley?"

The cringing man tried to moisten his lips with his tongue, but his mouth was even drier. "Couldn't sleep. I was just taking a walk. It isn't illegal."

Horatio's voice cut across his protest like a knife, smooth, honed, and deadly. "No, but leaving the scene of a crime when you're a material witness is."

"I called 911."

"And ran." Tripp leaned forward over the table. "Why'd you run, if you didn't do anything?"

For the first time, the man looked at his interrogators directly. "Did you see that body?" Tripp didn't react, but Horatio nodded, conceding the point. "Anybody would've run. Most people wouldn't even have stopped to call. What if he was still around there, man? I got the hell out."

Horatio didn't correct the assumption on the killer's gender. "Tell us about it again, from the beginning."

"I was just walking along minding my own business. I found the body. Ran back up the alley and called 911 at the corner. Didn't touch anything." Horatio and Tripp looked at each other, the thoughts linking silently. He told his story in almost identical words. It was definitely rehearsed. Unfortunately, knowing whatever he had really been doing at 3:00 AM would probably not help their case. He was a low-level thief who had only done small time, which was how he had contributed his fingerprints to AFIS before leaving them on the pay phone. A pleading tone crept into his voice now. "Can I go? I swear, Lieutenant, I never did nothing."

Horatio stepped away from the door, but as the man rose, he briefly took him hostage with his eyes again. "Be sure you keep it that way."

(H/C)

The team gathered in the layout room, running over the evidence that they had, considering each link again. No matter how they looked at it, the chain from evidence to killer was incomplete. "I got a partial print from that Wal-Mart bag," Speed said. "Too partial to match in court."

"You tried running it through the system, though." It was a statement, not a question. He was sure Speed hadn't quit halfway.

"Yeah, for all the good it did. Multiple matches, none of them active in Miami right now. Most of them inside."

Eric contributed the small triumph they had so far. "I got a print off the syringe. It matched that kid found dead one night later, and the drug traces in the syringe had been cut with some distinctive ingredients, same stuff that gradually killed him. Traced the lab location from those and took the gang down. Their leader's looking at murder charges plus drug dealing. So there's one less drug lab in Miami, at least."

"And how many left?" Speed retorted. They were all starting to wear a bit thin chasing dead ends on the serial killer.

"Nice work, Eric," Horatio said, sincere even though still worried about the other case. His velvet tones smoothed over the moment, although Eric hadn't been taking it personally. Speed was just frustrated, like the rest of them.

"The body and the clothes were washed," Horatio continued. "And even Calleigh can't make a 100% match on that bullet, at least not that would hold up in court. It's just too banged up." He smiled at her for a microsecond. "The best thing we have is the note. A woman, in the prime of life, probably single, probably not employed at anything requiring computer skills. What we're going to do is this: In between working other cases, keep running a search on those points in the databases. People recently inside, parolees, anything you can think of. The partial fingerprint might not be hers, so we can't rule out a possible prison link. We're going to keep looking."

"And waiting," Eric said softly.

"Maybe she won't strike again," Calleigh offered. None of them believed it.

(H/C)

Calleigh rolled over in her sleep, reaching for him. The void on the other side of the bed woke her up, and she sat up, listening intently. The gentle, hypnotic creak of the rocking chair from the nursery finally sorted itself out from the other nighttime sounds, and she smiled as she slid out of bed and padded across the hall. A thin finger of light spilled out from under the closed nursery door. He hadn't wanted to disturb her. She opened the door and leaned against the frame for a minute, surveying her family with approval. Horatio looked up at her. "Hey. Didn't mean to wake you up. Rosalind just wanted some attention."

Calleigh came across to run one hand through her daughter's silky hair. Rosalind was almost asleep again, and she gave a tiny murmur of contentment at the touch and snuggled closer to her father. Her eyes didn't open. "What are you doing up, Horatio?"

"I told you, Rosalind . . . "

She silenced him effortlessly with one look. "You were already awake, standing in here, before she woke up."

He didn't deny it, but the CSI in him demanded the chain of evidence. "How do you figure that?"

"She didn't wake me up. I never heard her at all. Therefore, you were standing right by the crib in the first place, and you grabbed her right away."

"You were sleeping pretty soundly."

"Are you questioning a mother's ears, Horatio?"

He smiled, saluting her perception. "Okay, I'll confess. I was standing in here already."

"Now that we're both admitting that, I repeat, what are you doing up?"

His eyes tracked to the window and the shadows gathered outside. "Just wondering what's happening in the city tonight."

Calleigh touched his cheek gently. This case was hard on all of them but Horatio most of all. He felt responsible to the public for the lack of progress in the investigation. He might reassure his people that they were doing their best with what they had, but personally, he felt that he should have been able to do more. "You know, Horatio, I'll bet most people in the city right now are sleeping. We should be, too. Running yourself down won't solve the case faster."

Rosalind was totally asleep now, lost in peaceful dreams of innocence. Horatio studied her for a minute. "I was just thinking, standing here, if there are people like this woman out in the world, I'm glad Rosalind is here, too. The world is going to need more like her." He stood smoothly, never disturbing her, and eased her back into the crib, carefully tucking her in.

"The world needs more like you." Calleigh kissed his throat and gradually worked her way around, managing to switch his thoughts to an entirely different track. She finally pulled away, reaching out to flick off the nursery light. "Come on, Horatio. You know the best cure for insomnia?"

He willingly let himself be led out of the nursery. "Remind me."

(H/C)

The body lay in the lot behind a used appliance store. Carcasses of old refrigerators and stoves, too derelict to be sold even at this place, were tumbled around the back lot, and the body lay between two overturned refrigerators. Horatio studied it carefully, then looked back toward the rear door of the store, where the owner was propped up by the door frame. The man still looked pale. He had vomited when he found the body, and the smell of that mingled with the smell of charred flesh. The mutilations had been much deeper this time, and there were two lines down the chest, not one. Tally marks, like Horatio had feared. Once again, the clothes were in a neat pile by the feet.

Calleigh was taking a statement from the store owner. Speed was taking photos of the body and surrounding area, and Eric was combing carefully through the lot, looking for anything useful. Speed finished filming and stepped back, and Horatio knelt by the body. "Help me out here, Speed. Let's move him carefully, but I want to see if there's a note under him." They eased the man onto his side, trying to disturb his position as little as possible. Horatio again noted that rigor mortis had fully worn off. The note was waiting underneath the body, carefully placed under the center. Speed took two pictures of it, and then Horatio pulled it out and they eased the body back down. "This is the second one to die." The handwriting was the same, and the gap before the word second was very slightly stretched.

Calleigh came up behind them and studied the note. "The owner isn't much use. He said nobody uses the lot for anything. It's just his personal junkyard. He has no idea how long the body has been here."

"I'm sure Alexx can help us out there. I don't think it's been too long. The insects haven't really gotten to him yet." Horatio glanced at the two refrigerators framing the body. "Look at the layout here. This is probably one of the few spots in this lot where she could get two appliances to make a perfectly parallel frame. She likes symmetry. She even dragged him farther to get this particular spot." The evidence that the body had been dragged was clear this time. The lot had been paved in the very distant past, but it was so broken that weeds and dirt had long since overcome the asphalt. Clear drag marks were visible from the man's feet, along with odd-looking footprints.

Speed was busy photographing one of the footprints. "I think she definitely wore bags around her feet again, H. Proves the partial on that other bag is from her."

"Be sure you measure them. Even if we can't get shoe tread, we can at least get rough size."

Eric approached. "You can tell where the car was parked. Same leaks, and this time, I think we can get a tire track. I'll get a cast of it. Also, eight condoms in various spots. I guess the owner's wrong about this lot not being used."

Calleigh glanced at the looming appliances. "Who could feel alone here? It would be like they were watching, especially in the dark. Not my idea of a place for romance."

"I doubt they were calling it romance, Calleigh," Speed said.

The body haulers arrived at that point, parking well away from the area and threading their way through the junkyard in a businesslike slouch. Horatio stood over the body, and this time, he did not move aside as usual when they came up. "Gentlemen." They hesitated, confused by the break in routine. "I am sure that you will treat this victim, as well as the details of this ongoing investigation, with all the consideration and confidentiality they deserve." His eyes nailed them individually, and a chill cut through the steamy morning. One of them looked puzzled, but the other looked guilty, then innocent in rapid-fire succession. Horatio held him for a second longer, then stepped aside. The usual CSI discussion about the case was stilled as the body haulers performed their task in silence. Only after they were gone did the hum of work resume.

(H/C)

Alexx shivered. "She's escalating, Horatio. These burns went a lot deeper."

"Multiple burns, too, instead of one X. There's still a pattern, but it isn't quite as neat." Horatio shivered himself. "Those two burns down the chest are absolutely parallel, but the ones on the genitals are just slightly blurred. She was enjoying it too much to be as careful this time. What else can you tell me, Alexx?"

"Cause of death is the same, gunshot wound to the head."

Calleigh held out the bullet in its little plastic vial. "This one didn't ricochet quite as badly. I might be able to match it to a gun, if not to the other bullet."

"All injuries were postmortem, and again, he'd been dead 36 hours or so. The body was washed, but there are two things." Alexx uncovered a foot. "Debris between his toes and under his toenails. She dragged him through that lot."

"This vic is only average size, too. She's definitely small herself, I think. What's the other point, Alexx?"

Alexx went back to the hands, picking one up in clinical triumph. "There's some kind of grease stuck under his fingernails. She didn't totally get that off with washing. I sent samples up to trace, but I was wondering if it's some kind of car grease. Maybe she asked him to help her change a tire or to look at something on her car. This one hadn't been drinking. Asking for help on her car would have the same effect, though. She could take him off guard that way, and almost any man would fall for it. He'd be too caught up in demonstrating his superior auto knowledge to notice any threat."

Calleigh nodded. "I think it's a badge of manhood or something. A woman can't even say she's having trouble with her car without any man within earshot feeling the need to diagnose it on the spot. It's like doing routine car maintenance themselves, if they have time at all. The average man has to do it. It's not masculine to do nothing with your car. They have to at least change the oil themselves or something."

Horatio was following this exchange with a slightly puzzled expression. "I just go to Jiffy Lube, myself."

"Horatio, you are not the average man. Honestly, I think 90% of men would come right along and be totally off guard if she asked them to look at her car." Calleigh inserted a probe into the bullet wound and nodded. "Angled shot. He was bending over."

"Nice work, ladies. I'll go see how Speed and Eric are doing. Keep me posted." Horatio left the autopsy bay, and Alexx looked at Calleigh.

"Does he really go to Jiffy Lube?"

Calleigh nodded. "So help me God. I'm more interested in mechanical stuff than he is. He thinks looking at cars outside of an investigation is a waste of time."

Alexx shook her head admiringly. "One in a million you've got there, honey. Hang onto him."

Calleigh tossed her hair back. "Believe me, I intend to."

(H/C)

The transparent board was divided into two sections with one clean slash of Horatio's marker. At the top of one section, he wrote similarities, at the other, differences. He then turned back to the team, waiting.

Calleigh spoke up first. "Both times, the vic was shot with a .22 handgun. I think it was the same gun, but the defense attorney wouldn't agree."

"The defense attorney isn't at this conference." Horatio wrote 'same gun, .22' under similarities.

"Physically, they were both on the small side for men," Alexx said. "Hair was absolutely black, too. True black, not dark brown. That's a bit unusual."

Horatio wrote it down. "I think we can safely assume that that's part of her criteria for victims." He moved over to the other column. "On the other hand, there were no similarities in victimology. Nothing beyond the appearance and the manner of death to tie them together. One left in an alley, the other in a back lot, but both locations pretty deserted by Miami standards."

"Both taken at a point of weakness," Eric said. "She's got to be small. She doesn't want a fight."

"No connection on dates," Speed pointed out. "First one died on a Monday night, dumped on a Tuesday night. Second one died on a Saturday night, dumped on a Sunday night."

Horatio finished writing and stepped back, studying the board. "Also, she has a place where she can safely keep bodies for at least 24 hours without anyone noticing. Those mutilations took time. She drives a car with a few leaks and fairly worn tires. Is that everything?"

"Everything but the name," Speed said.

Horatio looked through the clear plastic beyond to the killer. "She has a name. We just don't know it yet." He spun back around with smooth intent to face his team. "But we will."

(H/C)

Calleigh parked in the short-term parking at the airport and briskly rounded the car to extract Rosalind from her car seat. "We're going to meet your uncle, Rosalind. You be nice to him, you hear? And try not to spit up on him, okay? He's not used to kids." Rosalind chattered happily in response, and Calleigh finished unhooking the last strap and picked her up. "Okay, let's go. What do you bet the plane is late?" She headed for the glass and concrete structure. A small woman, barely her own size, passed her going the other way, and Calleigh couldn't help eyeing her clinically, trying to picture her with a gun or a cigarette lighter. Her mind was still partly at CSI. She felt guilty about taking this afternoon off, although Horatio had insisted that CSI could run without her for a few hours. "Difficult, but we'll manage," he had said, and she had filed that line mentally to throw back at him one day. Honestly, there wasn't much they could do with the serial killer case except run their endless searches through databases. Everything they had still didn't add up to the killer's identity.

The plane was on time, for a wonder, scheduled to arrive shortly, and Calleigh went to the waiting area near that gate. There ahead of her were a few other people on the chairs and Travis Fox on the television. "This is Travis Fox with an exclusive on the serial killer case. KMIA has obtained exclusive evidence that this serial killer is, in fact, female. Yes, a female serial killer is stalking Miami, a Black Widow, shall we say, extracting vengeance on men. Yes, we will call her the Black Widow from now on. She hasn't struck since the beginning of this week, but who knows what webs she is spinning right now. Perhaps more progress would be made on this case if women were leading the investigation, instead of Horatio Caine from CSI. Unfortunately, CSI seems to be at a standstill. Meanwhile, the Black Widow's death toll rises."

Calleigh ground her teeth together, wanting to throw something at this sanctimonious idiot who dared to question Horatio's competence. A man in the nearest chair shook his head. "Jeez, Travis, give it a rest, would you? Do you think you're helping things?" But he did not turn away from the screen.

Calleigh abruptly snapped. "Do you think you're helping things? If he didn't have an audience, the station wouldn't keep him on. No, it's people like you who keep up the demand for reporters like him. You call it biased sensationalism, feeding off people's pain, and everything else in the book, but the one thing you never do is change the channel. Did it ever occur to you that without people like you, Miami wouldn't have to put up with him?" Rosalind reached up, touching her mother's face in wonder, bringing her back to her senses. The man was staring at her, as was everyone else in the waiting area.

"Look, lady," he said, "I'm just waiting for a plane. I didn't pick the channel, and I do change it at home. As far as I'm concerned, he isn't a reporter; he's a parasite."

Calleigh suddenly felt smaller than her own daughter, who was still watching her with puzzled concern. "I'm sorry," she said. "Really. He just gets on my nerves sometimes. I had no right to take it out on you." She touched her daughter. "I'm sorry, Rosalind. It's okay." Rosalind wasn't quite convinced.

The man gave her an easy grin, dismissing the awkward moment. "I understand. No problem. That's a cute baby you have there."

Calleigh relaxed herself. "Thank you." Slowly, stiffly, their remaining audience returned to staring at either their newspapers or the walls. No one looked at the television. Calleigh firmly turned her back to Travis Fox and wandered over to a window where she could see a plane landing in the distance. She wondered if it was Peter's. "See the plane out there, Rosalind?" She pointed planes out as they landed and took off, and Rosalind relaxed and started looking around again, watching the world with her usual contented interest. Before long, Peter's plane did pull up to the gate, and the stream of passengers flowed into the waiting area. The television was forgotten in the sounds of reunion.

Peter was one of the last off the plane. Calleigh was always surprised on seeing him at how dark he was, the jet black hair and dark complexion. They looked nothing like siblings, though he also was slightly built. DNA isn't external, she reminded herself. He approached her slowly, tentatively, and she met him halfway. Discarding an absurd impulse to shake hands – they were family, after all – she gave him a one-armed hug. "Peter, great to see you again. This is Rosalind."

Peter reached out to touch the baby. "Hi, Rosalind. I've heard a lot about you." She eyed him coolly, and Calleigh smiled.

"She takes a while to warm up to people. She'll get to know you."

"Don't blame her. I take a while to warm up to people myself. How are things, Calleigh?"

"Wonderful." His dark, uncertain eyes probed into her, trying to read her response on a level she didn't understand. Probably he was just still a little unsure of his welcome around her. Too many years of misunderstandings and abandonment lay behind them to be forgotten quickly. She smiled at him. "Really, Peter. Rosalind is perfect, and Horatio is Horatio. I couldn't be happier."

He relaxed a bit. "How is Horatio? He really was sick for a while there."

It was Calleigh's turn to tense up, remembering. "Yes, he was. It took him a few months to start feeling like himself again, but then he really started to pick up. The doctors are thrilled with how well he's doing now. Back to his old self. Honestly, you'd never know."

"Good. I would have come sooner to see Rosalind, but I didn't want to be in the way. Honestly, if I'm in the way now, Cal, just shove me out the door. I can take a hint."

She smiled at him. "You aren't in the way, Peter, and you need to get to know Rosalind. One day is strictly reserved, though. September 25th is our anniversary, and we won't be available that day."

"Where are you going?"

Calleigh gave him the totally relaxed, impish smile she used to give him too many years ago, when they were both young kids, still unscarred from their parents. "We aren't going anywhere, but the rest of the world is."

His answering smile dissolved the tension between them. "Understood. If I'm still here, I'll just conveniently get lost."

"Thank you, Peter." They had been standing all this time as the crowd thinned out around them. "We'd better get moving, or Horatio will beat us home." He started walking with her, then stopped, puzzled, as Calleigh froze and turned back.

"This is Travis Fox with KMIA, breaking news here. The Black Widow has struck again. Yes, the Black Widow has struck again. The death count stands at three. More details as soon as we have them. I am en route to the scene now to keep the people of Miami informed."

Calleigh faced Peter. "I don't think Horatio's going to beat us home after all."


	4. More Deadly 4

"Most profilers say serial killers don't learn from mistakes in their previous killings, but I believe they do. They try to improve on their previous effort. You know how the more you do something, the better you get at it? Well, there comes a point where you peak, and you can only go down. With serial killers, a greed factor will set in where they'll believe the more they kill and get away with it, the easier it will be. And that's when they get sloppy and get caught." Tod W. Burke, professor of criminology at Radford University and a former police officer.

(H/C)

Eric Delko had never actually thrown up at a crime scene, but this one came close. He swallowed hard and forced himself to take deep breaths. "This woman is just sick, H. With every vic, she goes further."

Horatio was looking paler than usual himself. "She's enjoying it. But the more confident and wrapped up in it she gets, the more likely she is to make mistakes. Her lines aren't quite as straight anymore. She's starting to get careless." He swept the scene with his eyes like radar, turning to get the full picture. The body this time was in another lot behind some businesses. It was lying between two dumpsters and, because everyone only threw bags of trash in the nearer dumpster until it was full, no one had walked around to discover the man until the late afternoon. "She's trying for a parallel frame again with the dumpsters. Come to think of it, that first body was centered between a dumpster and a wall. She's slipping, though. You can tell from the burns. Let's really be careful going over this one."

Eric glanced at the sun. "We're going to lose the light, H."

"We'll go as far as we can, then set up guards and finish it tomorrow. We aren't processing this scene with lights." Horatio's hands, on his hips, clenched slightly in a rarely visible sign of frustration. "She will make her mistake. They all do. And when she does, we'll find it."

Eric nodded and changed angle for another picture. Horatio's cell phone rang, and he snapped it open without even looking at the caller ID for once, his eyes still fixed on the crime scene. "Horatio."

"Hey." Calleigh heard the distracted note in his voice, and she did not attach the nickname Handsome. He was fully focused on the crime at the moment, as he should be. She didn't want to disturb any chains of evidence that might be forming in his mind. "I just heard the news. Do you need me at the scene?"

He was silent for a minute, weighing her professional and family responsibilities, and she gave him time, trusting him for the decision. "I don't think so, Cal, at least not tonight. Peter just got in, and we're going to lose the light here in a couple of hours, anyway. We'll have to pick it up tomorrow. Also, Alexx had just left, and I didn't call her back. She can do the autopsy tomorrow morning, and you can get the bullet then. This isn't a one-day case."

"Same details as all the others?"

"The same but worse. We have got to catch this woman."

"We will. Do you want me to see if Jonathan can keep Rosalind tomorrow? Peter's here, but he's got no experience with kids. We don't want to throw him in the deep end right away. She could play with Alexx's kids while we're working."

"Why can't she just go to daycare?"

"Tomorrow's Saturday, Horatio."

He had forgotten, lost in the case. He looked over at Eric, the fun-loving date machine who hadn't even blinked when he'd mentioned working tomorrow, and wondered whether Eric had also forgotten or had just sacrificed the day off without regret to try to catch this killer. "So it is. Calleigh, you'd better tell Peter what's going on."

"I'd already explained that we'll still have to work while he's here. He won't mind."

"I'm sorry about tonight, Cal. Enjoy the evening yourself. I'll be pretty late, I'm afraid. We've got to check in everything we get tonight at CSI after it gets dark."

"It doesn't matter, Horatio. I understand." His mind was tracking some lead on the case again. She had heard the gears change from courteous regret to purpose. "I'll let you get back to work. See you later."

"See you later, Calleigh. I love you."

Calleigh smiled to herself. Even when his mind was elsewhere while he said it, his velvet tone caressing those words warmed her soul. "I love you, too. Bye, Horatio."

"Bye." He snapped the phone shut and pocketed it blindly, his eyes fixed on the man's hair, the jet black hair. Once again, this victim was on the small side for a male. "Eric, I think it's time we gave some of her victim selection criteria to the press. Obviously, the hair and size are staying consistent. Maybe we can warn future victims." All investigations withhold certain details of method for use later in trapping the killer, who couldn't have known them through the media. In this case, though, now that they were sure on that link, Horatio was willing to give up the knowledge if it would save even one life.

Eric waved a gloved hand toward the KMIA remote van, pulling up a few hundred feet away. Travis Fox, self-proclaimed emcee of Miami's crime scene, had arrived. "There's Fox, right on cue."

Horatio shook his head. "I said the press. He doesn't deserve the title." He considered briefly, consulting the Rolodex of his mind, then pulled his cell phone out again and dialed. Eric wondered if he ever had to look up a number after hearing it once. "Bruce? Horatio Caine. Did you hear about the latest murder? Right, the one Fox already announced several minutes ago. Well, I've got an exclusive for you."

(H/C)

Calleigh snapped her cell phone shut and put it back in her purse, then started the car, pulling out of the short-term parking lot. Peter, who had been engaged in a good-natured, on his part at least, staring contest with Rosalind, turned back around in his seat. "Does he need you?"

"Not tonight. Most of this one will have to be processed tomorrow, since they got started so late in the afternoon. We can't let night shift take it; we're trying not to split this investigation. I'm afraid it ruins our Saturday, though."

"I understand. Look, Cal, you two – uh, three – go on with your lives, just like I wasn't here. I haven't needed a baby-sitter for years."

She grinned at his tone. "That reminds me, I've got to call Jonathan when we get home, see if he can watch Rosalind tomorrow. Not that I don't trust you, Peter, but she doesn't know you yet. A whole day of her would get on both your nerves."

He looked relieved. "Thanks. I do want to get to know her, but I don't know the first thing about kids." He glanced back at Rosalind again, strapped into her car seat behind them. She was still watching him steadily, not looking around. "One thing I've always heard people say, though. I thought kids made noise."

"She does when she wants to. She's just not that receptive with strangers. Believe me, if you're staying with us, you'll hear her make noise." Calleigh glanced back herself at a stop light. "Are you getting hungry, Angel? We'll be home soon." Rosalind's eyes switched off Peter, and she brightened up and cooed. "See? She makes noise. She gets a lot louder than that, too."

Peter grinned. "Now that's more like what I've heard from people. So, Cal, tell me about her." Calleigh launched easily into one of her newest favorite topics, and the car slowly threaded its way through the rush hour traffic as they talked. When they pulled up in front of the house, Peter got out and stood assessing it for a minute while Calleigh unbuckled Rosalind. For the first time that afternoon, she remembered that he was an architect. "Nice set up. Contemporary but classy. They don't always go together."

"You've seen it before, Peter."

"Only twice, both times when Mother was here, too. Also, I was too busy sizing up Horatio then to notice details. Got to make sure he was good enough for my little sister, you know." Calleigh half hit him with her free hand. He hadn't been around to look after his little sister for a long stretch of her life, but she didn't want to destroy the relaxed moment by mentioning that. The past was past, and she was too happy with the present to hold a grudge.

"Wait till you see the inside, then, since you weren't paying attention before." He stood back, impressed with how adeptly she juggled baby, bags, and keys. She unlocked the door and stepped inside, turning back to catch his reaction. The door opened straight into the living room, the largest room by far. It ran the full depth of the house, drawing the eye irresistibly toward the large sliding glass doors at the back, facing the beach. Overhead, open beams spanned the room with a high arched ceiling over them, unfailing strength and free space combined. The kitchen was off to one side, the hall and other rooms to the other, but it was the living room with its meticulously-placed furniture, strong but elegant lines, and unparalled view that always impressed visitors. Peter crossed to the glass, drawn magnetically by nature's spectacle. "Wow. I'll bet you get wonderful sunrises here."

"We'll demonstrate one tomorrow morning in your honor." Calleigh dumped her purse and headed down the hall. "The guest room is down here, Peter, if you want to put up your suitcase." She diverted into the nursery to change Rosalind's diaper, then came back out to find him wandering around the living room again. He sat in a chair, bounced back up, and tried another.

"Contemporary, classy, and comfortable. I'll give you three stars, Calleigh. This room is beautifully laid out." He tracked the beams overhead with his eyes, measuring the distance.

"Horatio designed the house."

He was impressed. "Really? I thought he . . ."

Calleigh smiled at him. "You thought he was just a CSI and therefore couldn't do anything outside of a crime lab. He has many talents, Peter. In fact, I think he's good at everything. His best friend, Al Humphries, had a brother who had just moved to Miami and was trying to get established in the construction business. He gave Horatio a discount, and Horatio gave him a reputation. Here, let me get a bottle for Rosalind, and you can feed her while I work on feeding us." She demonstrated baby-holding techniques, and Rosalind and Peter eyed each other dubiously for a moment before Rosalind decided to accept the bottle at face value. Calleigh left them to it and headed into the kitchen. Hard to believe that she had been new at this herself only a few months ago. She called Alexx to discuss Saturday, then started cooking.

They chatted comfortably while eating, but the CSI in Calleigh detected a common link. Peter had relaxed and wanted to hear all about her, Horatio, and Rosalind, but any time she started to bring up Norfolk, where he lived, he dodged away, skillfully turning the subject back to her life. Afterwards, Peter walked around the living room again, looking at the pictures, while Calleigh tucked Horatio's share of the food into the refrigerator to be warmed up later. "Is this his family?" He didn't have to ask why there were few pictures of her family. She doubted he had many himself.

"Right. His parents and his younger brother. Some of them are of close friends, too."

"Is this his mother on the piano?"

"Yes. It was her piano. He says she could play a lot better than he can, but I don't believe it."

Peter ran unskilled fingers along the keys himself, and Rosalind, tucked into a baby carrier, immediately sat up and came to life, absolutely demanding. Calleigh laughed as she emerged from the kitchen. "He can't play, Rosalind. Not up to your standards, I'm afraid, no more than I can." She picked her daughter up, and Rosalind pulled toward the piano, stretching out short arms vainly, fingers flailing. Peter backed away from the keys.

"Sorry, Rosalind. Really. Believe me, you don't want to hear it."

"Maybe your father will play for you when he gets home," Calleigh said. Her tone abruptly fell flat. "Or maybe he won't. He probably won't feel like it tonight, and you'll be in bed already."

Peter, as sensitive to mood as she was, didn't follow that subject, going over to the glass doors and opening them. The cool breeze straight off the ocean flooded into the house, along with the heavy smell of salt water and the endless lullaby of the tide. Calleigh took a deep breath and stepped out with Rosalind to join him, flicking a switch that floodlit the entire deck. The sun was in free fall behind them. Peter had stopped just outside on the deck and turned, looking at the neatly-fenced pool tucked behind the house. "Is this new? I don't remember it, but I was distracted those other two visits."

"Just put in this year, back in May. It was a gift from everybody on the force." He looked puzzled, and she explained. "It was Eric's idea. You remember Eric Delko, don't you? After Horatio got the cast off his leg, he had to ease back into things. That was a really bad break, and they didn't want him putting a lot of stress on it right away, but he wanted to get moving and start getting back in shape, of course. He always loved running before, but there was a long stretch where he couldn't do it. He could swim, though. That was the one thing that would let him start getting some exercise without putting more stress on the leg. So Eric got the idea of giving us a pool. He took up a collection at the PD and managed somehow to keep it a secret. Horatio and I never knew until they gave us the check. Almost everybody contributed to it. Eric actually had to tell people to stop giving because he had enough." She smiled, remembering how much both of them had been touched by the gift and more by the overwhelming esteem and support behind it. "Horatio did insist on two things, though. The fence, because of Rosalind. See if you can guess the other, since you're the architect."

Peter studied the pool. "It's offset. It wouldn't disrupt the view from the living room to the ocean."

"Bull's-eye." Rosalind suddenly yawned, and Calleigh smiled. "Getting sleepy, Angel? I'm going to go rock her to sleep, Peter, and then we can talk some more. Make yourself at home."

By the time Calleigh got Rosalind put to bed, Peter had come back in. They sat in the living room talking, peeling away the layers of awkwardness, getting used to each other again. Increasingly, though, Calleigh looked at her watch. The clock struck ten. The clock struck eleven. "It's a hard job, isn't it?" Peter asked, catching her checking the time again.

"Hard but worthwhile," she replied. "Knowing you've touched lives, even saved lives, makes a difference. We help give closure to the victims, and we save future victims. I can't imagine doing anything else." Her eyes lit as she thought about it. "And I even get to share the work with Horatio."

"Two years on the 25th, isn't it? How has it been, Calleigh?"

It suddenly crossed her mind that that was about the fifth time he had asked her that question. "It's wonderful. Sharing your life totally with someone is the ultimate experience, Peter."

The lights of the Hummer found their way through the front curtains as Horatio turned into the driveway, and Calleigh immediately jumped up. She was waiting just inside the front door, and he stepped straight through the doorway into her arms. He sagged against her for a minute, then straightened up slightly as one foot swept behind him to close the door. Calleigh released him. "Have you had anything to eat, Horatio?"

He looked absolutely exhausted, worn out by responsibility as much as work. "I'm not hungry."

"That wasn't what I asked you." Assuming the answer, she headed into the kitchen.

Horatio turned to Peter and actually jumped slightly, his greeting dying halfway as Peter's uncanny resemblance to the latest victim seized him. Fresh from the crime scene, Horatio had to fight an eerie feeling for a moment that the victim had resurrected, clothed himself, and was now sitting in Horatio's own living room. This case must be getting to him. He'd met Peter before, of course. He shook off the thought and stepped forward. Peter was looking slightly puzzled. "Peter, great to see you again. Did you have a good flight?"

Peter stood to shake hands, studying Horatio. He always forgot somehow between his rare visits just how rock solid the strength of this man was. Utter confidence without arrogance or insensitivity. He'd never seen the combination anywhere else. He did wonder what had come over him for a moment there, when the attitude had totally changed, but Horatio was as smoothly assured as ever now.

They sat down again, talking, and Calleigh came back from the kitchen and handed Horatio a plate. "I want it totally empty in ten minutes," she said firmly.

"Yes, ma'am," Horatio replied meekly, picking up the fork. Peter grinned, and Calleigh caught it and grinned back at him. Horatio took a few bites, then started down the trail Calleigh had been trying to explore all evening. "So, Peter, tell us a little bit about yourself. How's life in Norfolk?"

"Pretty good. I think I like the ocean at Miami better, though. Norfolk is such a huge commercial shipping port, and between that and the Navy base, the view has those massive ships in it. Miami is less cluttered, mainly fishing and sailboats. Less intruding, somehow."

Horatio caught the faint trace of almost-wistfulness in his tone. "Are you thinking of moving down here?" he asked between bites.

It was Peter's turn to jump. "No. Not at all. I was just thinking out loud. I like Norfolk, really." He smoothly doubled back the conversation for the umpteenth time that evening. "So, how are things in Miami?"

Horatio studied Peter again, more thoroughly and less haunted this time. "Pretty good, except for this case we have going at the moment. There's something you ought to know while you're in Miami, Peter. This serial killer we're after definitely is picking smallish men with black hair, so be on guard." Calleigh jumped herself. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of that point. To her, of course, he was her brother, not elements of a physical description. "I gave that much to the press tonight, Cal, now that we're sure she's sticking with that type."

Calleigh nodded. "Hopefully it will make a difference. She'll probably still manage to find victims, though. People never think it could happen to them."

"They won't really be safe until we catch her." A knife-edge of determination sliced across his tone. "The hardest thing, though, with a serial killer is how random it is. No connection on victimology beyond the appearance." Horatio took his last bite and set the plate aside.

"Her being a woman just makes it harder," Calleigh said. "They're much more devious. She's no match for you, though. We'll get her." They were sitting side by side on the couch, and she touched his arm lightly. Horatio looked down at her hand, then tensed up suddenly as puzzle pieces mentally realigned and clicked into a new picture. "What is it, Horatio?"

"What if it isn't just random?"

"You lost me, Handsome. We tried linking the victims."

"Lost me, too," Peter put in. "I thought all serial killers worked randomly."

Horatio's eyes were on fire, the fatigue momentarily burned away. "Statistically, they do. Practically all of them, anyway. But a woman is more devious, like you said. Have either of you ever read the ABC Murders by Agatha Christie?" They both shook their heads. "It was her mind, a woman's mind, that came up with that plot. Suppose you wanted to kill someone and had a real, personal motive. You can't just go kill that person because you would be a suspect. But your victim had black hair. So you go out and kill a few other random victims with black hair, then kill yours, then maybe even add a few more for good measure. Everyone says there's a serial killer on the loose stalking men with black hair, and nobody even considers whether there was a real motive against only one of them. Maybe that's what we're dealing with."

Calleigh followed him mentally. "That would fit the note. That statement about his being the first to die was a lie, Charlene said. Maybe because she wasn't really after that one, she was thinking of a future victim. That was the death that mattered to her." The excitement suddenly deflated. "It doesn't make her any less dangerous, though. Red herrings or not, she's killing people."

"It doesn't make her any less dangerous," Horatio said, "but it might make her easier to catch. If that's what she's doing, and it is just a theory. We're going to really dig into those victims' lives, individually, not trying to link. If it's the right theory, the proof will be there."

"On only one of them. It might not be one of the ones already killed, either."

"I know, Cal. It's a new direction to look, anyway. The directions we're on don't seem to be adding up fast. Maybe this is the key." He stood up, ready to head back down to the databases at CSI immediately, and Calleigh quickly stood up herself and hooked onto his arm like an anchor.

"Horatio, it's midnight. Tomorrow is soon enough."

He looked at his watch, surprised. "So it is." Reminded, he suddenly felt the fatigue surge back across the enthusiasm.

Calleigh saw it. "We'd better get to bed. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

He nodded. "I think I'll call that FBI profiler, too, and ask about the ABC theory. See what she thinks. She's been working on a profile of the killer anyway, and I faxed her several notes from the new scene before I left CSI."

"Tomorrow, Horatio. You've done enough tonight." At that moment, Rosalind woke up, and Calleigh sighed. "You need to talk to your daughter about timing. I'll get her."

Horatio shook his head. "I'll deal with it. She'll probably go right back to sleep. I haven't had a chance to say goodnight to her yet, anyway." He started down the hall to the nursery, and Calleigh turned back to Peter. He was looking after Horatio with admiration.

"He's really something, isn't he?"

"One of a kind." Calleigh sat back down on the couch. "About this case, Peter, I can't believe I hadn't thought of it, but this woman really is dangerous, and she's apparently getting worse as she goes. Don't assume anybody is innocent if she asks you to look at her car in a deserted alley, and don't drink with any strange women. You really do look a lot like the victims."

"Horatio looked like he'd seen a ghost for a minute when he first saw me. I guess that's what he was thinking."

"Probably was. He'd just come from a crime scene."

Peter leaned forward a bit. "So tell me about this case. The Black Widow, right?"

Calleigh flinched. "I wouldn't repeat anything Travis Fox says to Horatio."

"Yeah, we've got a few like that in Norfolk, too. Sensationalist creeps."

"Parasites," Calleigh said, remembering the man at the airport. "Anyway, yes, she is a female." She launched into a slightly edited version of the case. Even edited, it was bad enough. Peter was looking both shocked and sick by the end of it.

"I hope you catch her, Cal."

"We will. Like I said, she's no match for Horatio. I hope it doesn't take long, though." The clock struck 12:30, and she suddenly realized how long they had been talking. She couldn't hear anything from the nursery any longer. "Horatio?" She stood, curious, and went down the hall with Peter trailing her, then stopped in the nursery door, turning back and putting her finger to her lips to silence him. He came up behind her, and they stood there looking into the room. In the rocking chair, Horatio and Rosalind were both sound asleep.

(H/C)

The comparison microscope held the new bullet on one half of the field, the bullet from the second case on the other half. Calleigh peered through the eyepieces, carefully rotating the bullets. The third bullet wasn't quite as undamaged as the second one, but she was certain they had been fired from the same gun. She made a few notes, then carefully put up the bullets in their sealed containers and filed them, preserving the chain of evidence. She headed for Horatio's office, pausing in Trace to talk to Speed for a minute. He had recovered a print from one of the man's shoes and was running it through AFIS with no luck. "First time she's touched something she meant to leave at the scene," Speed said. "She's slipping."

"Does it match the partial on the Wal-Mart bag?"

"Yes. Doesn't match a name, though." He stared at the flickering records on the computer screen like he could will a match to come.

"Hopefully we'll have a suspect soon for you to match it to." She left Speed to his database searches and climbed the stairs to Horatio's office. He was on the phone, but he looked up and smiled at her as she entered, nodding toward the chairs in front of his desk. She sat down, and he switched on the speaker phone, letting her in on the other half of the conversation.

"It would be very unusual," the FBI profiler was saying. "I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but it would be unlikely. Serial killers very rarely have individual motives. On the other hand, I think a female perp would be more likely to come up with a plot like that than a male."

"Maybe she's read Agatha Christie," Horatio suggested.

"Could be. Killers do read books. I wouldn't exclude your idea, but keep all your options open investigating this one, Horatio."

"I will." He wasn't defensive. Directing detectives was her job, after all. He had wanted her opinion, and he accepted it.

"If you prove me wrong, be sure to let me know. We're always interested in comparing the real details to the profile. Back to the basic profile, our handwriting expert agrees with yours. This is a woman, which already makes her unusual statistically. I'd say she's white, since all of the victims so far have been white, and serial killers usually kill within their own race. Prime of life, from both the handwriting and statistics. I'm not sure if she's actually been abused – not all serial killers have – but I definitely think she has never had a normal relationship with a man. People who have had healthy sexual relationships would be incapable of the mutilations. She's well above average in intelligence, and she's perfectionistic and very organized. Almost certainly, she lives alone. She is definitely escalating, though. The progression of the mutilations is disturbing. Whatever started her killing, she's enjoying the act itself now. Many serial killers have described it as the ultimate thrill, better than sex or anything else you could name, and I think she's getting caught up in that. Also, she feels empowered more with every kill. She's going to get careless, I think. Hopefully, each scene will give you more to work from. She probably follows her own press. Almost all killers do. Killing is their effort at significance, and they get on an ego trip thinking that they have earned this recognition, this fear they've instilled in people. Even if you are right on motive for just one, given the escalation, I'd expect her to keep on killing, even after she gets her actual target. She won't quit until you catch her, or until she is incapacitated in some way."

"What do you and your handwriting experts make of that gap before the body count on the notes?"

"Again, we agree with yours. It's a lie. I'd say it's a lie based from the past, myself, not looking forward to a future victim she has a motive for. It's also a consistent lie across the three notes. First, second, and third. As you repeat a lie, you usually get more used to it. It can still be detected, but it gets progressively less obvious. Not this one. The space is widening, if anything. Whoever really was the first one to die, she's absolutely fixated on that point, refusing to let it go. I think that's probably the biggest key to what set her off. Maybe someone she lost years ago that she somehow blames society for. One more thing, Horatio. I agree on her being small physically, but watch out when you do catch her. These killers feel more empowered, more in control by killing, but when they are forced to realize they aren't in control, many of them either turn volatile or suicidal. It's more common for them to go suicidal, but some of them decide to go down fighting, try to take a few more out with them. I think a woman would be more likely to turn violent. Don't rely on what she did in a set-up she controlled when trapping the victims. She might turn on you, even if she didn't have a chance."

"We'll keep it in mind. Anything else?"

"Not at the moment, but let me know if you get anything new. Also, like I said, let me know when you catch her. I'm interested in really talking to this one."

"I'll try to arrange the meeting as quickly as possible. Thank you, Arlena." He hit the button, ending the call, and looked up at Calleigh. "What do you make of that?"

"Interesting. She didn't like your theory much, though."

He shrugged. "Just a theory. She has more experience than I have at this. We're not totally discarding it, though. I do want to dig a lot deeper into the backgrounds of the victims, and that's going to be hard."

"How?" They had the full computerized resources of CSI, along with absolute IDs.

"Even if I'm right – and I might not be – only one of these victims has the actual motive buried in the background. With the others, it would just be digging at a fresh wound for the family and gaining nothing. We're going to have to be sensitive on this, as well as thorough."

Calleigh hadn't been thinking of the families right then. Horatio never stopped thinking of the families, of course. "You're right. Are you going to do that yourself?"

"Anything involving talking to families, yes. I wouldn't want to put the team in that position." He also would do it better than anyone else on the team, Calleigh added mentally. "We're going to keep working on the physical evidence, too. Speed found a fingerprint. Also, the tox results are back. This one had also been drinking. 0.100. That's two out of three. We'll ask around the bars, show pictures of the victims. Maybe someone remembers something."

Calleigh suddenly remembered her original mission. "The bullets match, by the way. I hope we get more evidence than that for court, though. They're just beat up enough that a lawyer would try to confuse the jury. You know how some lawyers can be. They'll go to any lengths for a paycheck."

"Not all of them, but yes, I know some." Horatio abruptly chuckled, and Calleigh raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Speaking of people who will go to any lengths, I just had this mental image of Travis Fox on the witness stand, being cross-examined by one of the justice-for-hire lawyers."

"Tough call. I'd probably put my money on the lawyer, but it would be a good match-up. Too bad we couldn't sell tickets. Half of Miami would probably buy them." They both dissolved into laughter, releasing the tension, and Eric Delko, coming in with a report, wondered what was so funny. When they explained, he laughed harder than either of them.

(H/C)

"Horatio, what do you think is wrong with Peter?" They were heading into CSI two days later, having just dropped Rosalind off at daycare. He looked across at her.

"Haven't you worked it out yet?"

"No, and it's driving me nuts. He wanted this visit to meet Rosalind, but I'll swear he has ulterior motives. He watches us so intently sometimes, it probably makes his eyes hurt. He won't talk about his life at all, either. You mean you have worked it out?"

"Absolutely." He paused annoyingly, and she drummed her fingers on her thigh, waiting. "He's in love with a woman, but he's convinced that any relationship he could ever be in is doomed." He grinned at her look of surprise. "Believe me, Cal, I lived it for years. I could recognize it a mile away. Probably, in his case, the 'jinx' is genetic. He thinks all relationships turn into your parents. Therefore, since you share his DNA, he's collecting first-hand evidence on whether you're managing to overcome heredity and make it work."

Calleigh considered that. "You know, you could be right."

"Thanks. So much confidence there."

She smacked him on the arm. "You know what I meant. He's always said he'll never get into a relationship. Absolutely adamant about it, as long as I've known him. Even as a kid, before he ran away at 14. He never explained why, though."

"Love isn't something you choose to have. The only choice is whether to yield to it."

"There, you're definitely right. What do you think we should do, Horatio? Pin him down and explain to him in words of one syllable that we really are happy, and he could be, too?"

He shook his head. "He obviously doesn't want to talk about it. Also, the words wouldn't mean much, especially if the belief has been rooted there for years. Even with you, it took a little help from my mother to knock me out of it."

"Do you suppose she makes calls on demand? Maybe she could straighten him out."

He smiled. "Bet she would, too, if she could. She wouldn't mean anything to him, though. No, Calleigh, I think the best thing we can do is just give him a shining example of marital harmony."

"Okay, Handsome. I'll do my best to be obviously happy."

He looked across at her. The morning sun traced gold fingers through her hair, and her sparkling, vivid eyes were full of energy as always. All the beauty and spirit he had admired for years was on display, and the radiance of completed love was added now. "You don't have to try. You're a walking argument for love making people happy. He couldn't miss it."

She admired him in turn. "You're looking better all the time yourself, Handsome. And you were stunning to start with." She touched his arm, and his cell phone rang.

He sighed and fished it out. "End of touching moment. I think Rosalind, even as a baby, could give phones timing lessons. Horatio." His eyes tightened, and the relaxation of the morning shattered. "Another one? Where? On my way." He turned the Hummer at the next corner. Calleigh settled back in her seat and discarded any efforts at conversation. They had spent the last two days in intense searches, both through bars and through victims' backgrounds, coming up with nothing except that their first victim had definitely been having an affair. She wondered how much longer the death count would rise before the big break came.

Horatio pulled the Hummer up at the fresh crime scene tape, and in unison, they ducked under and headed down yet another alley. A trash collector had found the body this time, and he was propped against the wall as an officer took a statement. They rounded the dumpster and skidded to a surprised halt at the sight of the body carefully centered between the dumpster and the wall, clothes folded at the feet, with the usual increasing mutilations and the killer's score of four lines burned into his chest. Horatio stared at the jet black hair.

"Well, Travis," he said, "I guess you finally beat the police to a crime scene."


	5. More Deadly 5

"The Black Widow is typically intelligent, manipulative, highly organized, and patient; she plans her activities with great care. . . She relies on her ability to win the confidence and trust of her victims as a precursor to any attack. For this reason, she is seldom viewed as a suspect, even after she has committed several murders." Michael and C. L. Kelleher, Murder Most Rare

(H/C)

"Horatio." Horatio looked up from the lab results as Tripp came in. "What have you got so far?"

"More than last time. Speed found another fingerprint on the shoe, and also, there was some residue stuck between the tread on the sole. It turns out to be flour. Maybe the shoes were left sitting in a kitchen to dry after she'd washed them and picked up the flour from the counter."

"She bakes? With a dead body in the house?"

"Apparently. It at least increases the chance that she's keeping the body in a house, not in a garage or other structure. We've got the same pattern as usual from the autopsy. The burns were far deeper this time, the lines not as straight. All mutilations postmortem. She's an odd one. According to the FBI profiler, most female serial killers use poison, but she's obviously enjoying the physical destruction. Hey, Calleigh, what did you find out?"

Calleigh swept into the room briskly, and Tripp backed two steps to give her the spot next to Horatio. "The bullet matches."

Horatio mentally added that information to the file. "Again, she absolutely wants us to connect these murders. She's made a point of that, from the first one on. I haven't given up on the ABC theory."

"What's the ABC theory?" Tripp asked.

"Sorry, I hadn't had a chance to tell you about that yet. It's from a book, the ABC Murders by Agatha Christie."

Tripp cut him off before the explanation went any further. "Oh, **that** ABC theory. Interesting idea. Yeah, could be."

Calleigh stared at him. "You read Agatha Christie novels, Frank?"

Tripp shuffled his feet as his eyes fell. "Well, once in a while, if I can't sleep, I read mysteries and pick out procedural errors. What's your excuse, H?"

"I haven't read it. Raymond liked mysteries as a teenager, and she was one of his favorites. Anything I know about Agatha Christie is just from osmosis, not experience. Anyway, we haven't come up with any real motives so far on the first three, but we ought to have an interesting time with Fox."

Calleigh groaned. "There had to be a line."

Tripp nodded. "Thought about killing him myself a few times."

"That's why I think there's a chance that he was the intended victim in all this. I can certainly see him offending someone enough that they decide he had to be killed for it. By the way, he hadn't been drinking, but we all know what approach she used."

"Offering an exclusive," Calleigh agreed. "Probably set up a meeting in a deserted location and told him to come alone. For a reporter, that's even better than asking him to look at her car. Didn't that idiot ever listen to his own broadcasts? He knew he fit the description, and he knew the killer was a woman."

"He only reported crime; it was never real or personal to him," Horatio said. Speed ambled in at that moment. "All done with the fingerprint, Speed?"

"All logged, but no ID to match it to."

"Okay, here's what you do. One angle of this investigation will be finding people who had a motive to kill Travis Fox." Speed's eyes widened. "We're obviously working with too much data on that one. Any of us could name dozens of possible suspects. We're going to have to impose some organization on it. So I want you to start one year back – the profiler thinks whatever set off this killer was at least that long ago – and watch all of Fox's newscasts, working backwards."

Speed's mouth literally fell open. "You have got to be kidding."

Horatio had the grace to look sympathetic. "Sorry, Speed. Really. Check people attached to the events he reported who might have been offended – families, victims themselves, if living. We are looking for a woman, probably 30s or so, probably single, living alone, and – my latest guess – without a job, therefore with some level of independent means, since she has a car and a house. Many organized killers have jobs, but she just has too much time on her hands. These killings take place any day of the week, and then the mutilations take time, too. Make a list of any women you think are possibilities, and we'll track them down and talk to them."

Tripp nodded. "We're still working on showing pictures of the victims around the bars. Wish we could get some undercover officers on this, but the victims are too small. There's a minimum height for the PD."

"Keep at it. She is starting to make mistakes. Another thought I had – you can take this one, Cal – is traffic tickets. Son of Sam was caught because his car got a parking ticket near the scene of a murder. Check the women who got parking tickets near any bar on the kill dates for the two who were drinking. Try moving violations, too. They might have happened on the way to the bar, before she had the body with her. See if you can match the same criteria I gave Speed. She had to have her car with her to take the men away in. Worth a shot, anyway. Maybe we'll get lucky."

Speed looked even more sullen than usual. "How come she gets to look up parking tickets while I have to watch Travis Fox?"

Calleigh answered it herself. "Because I sleep with the boss, Speed. It counts for something." Horatio and Tripp both chuckled, and Speed, defeated, started forlornly toward the video room.

"Speedle," Tripp called, and Speed turned around. "Want popcorn?"

Speed muttered something they didn't quite hear but could guess well enough and continued out into the hall, nearly running into Eric on his way in. Eric was as buoyant as they had ever seen him after a murder. "Just think, guys, we don't have to put up with that jerk's face all over TV anymore."

"Shut up," Speed muttered and pushed on past him.

"What was that about?" Eric looked back at Horatio, puzzled.

"Speed's just a bit overwhelmed at an assignment I gave him. It really was too much for one person. Why don't you look him up and tell him I said you should help him out?"

"Sure thing, H." Eric retreated after Speed, and Calleigh turned to Horatio.

"That was absolutely cruel." He half-smiled but didn't apologize. "What are you going to be doing while we're all on these assignments, Handsome?"

The smile transformed from amused to predatory. "I'm going to go over Fox's cell phone records. The killer's call might be on there, but he also had a source in the department somewhere, and I reserve that interview for myself."

Calleigh and Tripp glanced at each other, recognizing the shared thought. Horatio's face and tone were both cast iron. There was at least one person on the force who was about to find himself enjoying this day even less than Speed.

(H/C)

"There wasn't any harm done." Officer Davis looked from Horatio to the captain, presenting his case to the jury. They might be his peers, but neither of them appeared sympathetic. Captain Martin looked disgusted, and Horatio looked furious. "I never gave him anything that mattered. Just little bits here and there. The big stuff was held back for the investigation."

"How the hell do you know that?" Horatio flung the words at him like a weapon, and Davis actually flinched, feeling the blow. "You weren't directly involved with those investigations. That explains the delay on some of the information getting out. How could you possibly know what mattered when you never saw all of the data? Even we don't know what matters until later a lot of times."

"The press has a right to information," Davis said. "It's in the constitution."

Horatio recognized the original source of that statement, and the flames in his eyes flared higher. "Did you ever think about the families? How would you feel, having details of your personal tragedy paraded by the press? Reporting is one thing, but that man was a vulture. Whether or not you hurt investigations, you hurt people." He actually took a step forward on the last sentence, and Captain Martin touched him lightly on the arm, firmly enough to be a reminder, not firmly enough to be a restraint yet. Horatio stood, staring at Davis, holding himself in check, but the effort was visible – and terrifying.

"How much?" the captain asked.

Davis was afraid to look away from Horatio, even while answering his superior. His body was poised in the chair, ready for evasive action if needed. "Depends on the information. He would go five hundred for the really good stuff." Horatio tightened up, then abruptly whirled around and left the room. Davis relaxed until the captain's voice, almost as deadly as Horatio's at the moment, sliced through his relief and amputated it.

"You are suspended without pay for the moment, pending results of an IAB investigation, including a thorough inspection of all of your financial records." Davis winced. Horatio had been right, Martin thought. If Davis was selling to Fox, he was probably doing other things on the fringe of his job as well. "Also, if we can prove that you interfered with the process of any investigation, you will be tried in the criminal courts for obstruction of justice. And the IAB will be quite diligent in looking for proof." Davis' eyes fell to his hands, which were suddenly knotted. "Give me your weapon, and then get out of my sight." Davis stood, unholstered his gun with unsteady fingers, and left the room. Horatio was leaning against the wall just outside, and he straightened up and surged forward as Davis came through the door. Davis stumbled to a halt, but Captain Martin was behind him this time, unable to intervene. Horatio's blazing eyes froze his victim as he ruthlessly closed the gap. One hand came out with smooth abruptness, and Davis actually whimpered as he tightened up with anticipated pain, but Horatio never touched him. Instead, he ripped the badge almost savagely off his belt, threw it to the floor, then turned and walked away.

(H/C)

Horatio dived into the pool, pushing himself into action the moment he hit the water, refusing to lose momentum. Ten laps. Twenty laps. The feeling of the water against his skin soothed him. It resisted – and then it gave way to determination. Like crime. The details would work out, the frustrations would end, and they would catch this perp. Thirty laps. Forty laps. He conquered the pool every morning, like he had gradually conquered his own physical weakness, like he conquered the cases at CSI. The water was heavy, powerful, exhausting, but it would always give way. Fifty laps. The odometer of his mind, spinning unnoticed beneath his thoughts, counting the laps, alerted him to the goal, and he slowed down for the first time and paddled to the ladder, hauling himself out of the water. He came across to the patio furniture at poolside, where Calleigh, Rosalind, and Peter had been watching him. "Your turn, Cal," he said, still breathing heavily. She watched the drops of water run down his appealingly lean, vital form and hesitated for a minute, wanting to prolong the image before she handed him a towel and got up herself.

Peter shook his head in admiration. He wasn't an early riser himself, and this happened to be the first of these morning swims he had seen in the week since being in Miami. The utter drive, the relentless attack with which Horatio faced the water surprised him. He had kept waiting for the machine-like laps to slow, but Horatio had held his speed from the first, obviously enjoying pushing the limits. Peter glanced at his extensively-scarred left leg, and Horatio caught the look. "Good as new," he stated, kicking the table leg with it, and Calleigh flinched. His smile to her was half reassurance, half apology.

Rosalind sat up, making her name sound for him, and he reached out to her. "Horatio, get the towel first," Calleigh objected. "You'll get her all wet."

"She won't mind." Horatio scooped up his daughter, twirling her around, and she laughed. Peter was getting to know her more, but he was still amazed at the transformation when she was around Horatio. She chattered at him now, then reached out, tracing the water drops herself, then sticking her fingers in her mouth. "Hey, Angel, you don't swallow it." Calleigh stood up and draped the towel around his neck, putting a barrier between Rosalind and the droplets, and Rosalind started trying to move the towel out of the way.

Calleigh extracted her reluctant daughter from his arms. "Horatio, dry off a bit, and then you can have her." Horatio toweled himself off, then sat down in one of the chairs, and Calleigh returned Rosalind to him, then dove into the pool herself.

"So how's this case going?" Peter asked.

"Slowly. We'll catch her eventually, but it takes a lot of tedious work sometimes. Poor Speed and Eric have been watching Travis Fox for two days straight."

Peter winced. "Are you paying them extra?"

"I tell them they're stocking up on brownie points for their next employee reviews. Calleigh and I are going out and talking to all these women they turn up. In the last two days, I've heard eleven women say that if it weren't for the other murders, they'd like to shake this woman's hand. Everybody wanted to kill him. Unfortunately, all of these women donated fingerprints willingly, and none matched. No traffic tickets. One probable cell phone call from the killer, and that was from a pay phone. This is just one of those cases that builds slowly."

"That's why I'd rather design houses. Everybody can see the progress. I like to drive by building sites I've designed every day and watch the building go up. Every day, there's a difference."

"So your business is going well in Norfolk?"

Peter immediately shied like a startled horse as he realized the location of his thoughts. "Um, yes, it is. So, do cases in Miami usually take this long?"

The cell phone, carefully placed on the table, rang just then, and Horatio and Rosalind both reached for it, with Horatio getting there first. "Horatio. Okay, Tripp. I'll meet you." He stood and handed Rosalind to Peter. "Take her, will you?" Peter was willing, but it was a bit like detaching an unwilling cat, equipped with 18 hooks, from a surface of which it has taken possession. Together, they pried Rosalind off, and she squealed, then subsided into resigned disgust. Horatio smiled at her. "Don't practice that expression, Angel. You'll turn into Speed." He walked over to the edge of the pool, and Calleigh, swimming with a bit less power but no less drive than he had, stopped as she passed him. "Cal, Tripp has a possible ID from one of the bars. They think the third victim drank there."

"They suddenly discovered this at 6:30 in the morning?" Calleigh pushed her wet hair back out of her eyes.

"One of the bartenders has been on vacation. He just got back last night and saw the picture we'd left, then remembered now that he didn't call when he got home a few hours ago. He was just getting ready to go to bed. Tripp and I are going to go talk to him."

She swept him with her eyes. "Better put some clothes on first."

"I was planning on it," he said dryly. "See you at CSI, Cal."

"See you then, Handsome. Oh, hell." He halted and turned back, puzzled. "I lost my lap count."

"You were at 19."

"I thought you were talking to Peter and then Tripp."

"I was watching you, too. You were at 19." He headed on inside, and Calleigh followed him with her eyes until he was completely out of sight. Finally, she pushed off again, forcing her distracted body into movement, counting the laps, starting from 19.

(H/C)

Peter prowled the much-admired living room, oblivious to his physical surroundings, restlessly pacing the cage of his thoughts. In a week of exquisitely close observation, he still couldn't find a crack in the relationship. Not that it was perfect, but Horatio and Calleigh somehow managed to disagree without getting violent and to agree without getting weak. It was a revelation. Nothing in his childhood had prepared him for this. With his parents, any disagreement turned into violence, verbal or physical, and agreement only occurred briefly with capitulation. He had run away at age 14, unable to take it any longer, and to this day, his only regret was leaving Calleigh to face it alone, not leaving home. He had left, like his older brother had already left, like Calleigh had left later. It was the only solution to avoiding the pain and disillusionment. It had become the creed of his life. Always leave, never let things go far enough that the thin veneer of happiness peels off a relationship to reveal the ugliness beneath. He had never expected to find one where he could not peek under that thin veneer, could not at least sense the fragile edge. It terrified him. So Peter had again done the one thing he had specialized in from childhood. He had left, even while disgusted at his own weakness. But in another week, when his vacation was over, he would have to return. The job tied him, if nothing else. What would happen when he went back?

His own cell phone rang, and he fished it out and stared at it in surprise. He had very few friends who knew the number, and all of those knew that he was on vacation. His throat tightened up as he saw the name on the caller ID, and he let the phone ring twice more, then forced himself to push the button. "Hello?" As if he didn't know already.

She wasn't buying it and didn't bother identifying herself. "How's your vacation going?"

"Pretty good, Becky. How are things there?"

"Fine. Got a minute?"

He scrambled for an agenda and wasn't even able to think up a satisfactory lie fast enough. "I guess so. Horatio and Calleigh are at work."

"Great. I've been doing some thinking while you've been gone. Peter, we need to talk."

(H/C)

Horatio and Calleigh came into the silent house after another fruitless day of dead-ends. The bartender remembered nothing about the victim besides his presence. Four more people had confessed to homicidal ideation toward Travis Fox, but none had gone beyond thinking it. Trudging, tired steps skidded to a halt just inside the front door. "Peter?" Calleigh called.

"He's not here," Horatio stated. The feeling of an empty house is vastly different from that of an occupied one, regardless of sound.

"That's odd. I know he's explored around Miami a bit while we work, but he knew we'd be home." Rosalind looked from one of her parents to the other and gave an inquiring babble. "Oh, well, he probably took a walk and just got delayed." She headed back for the nursery with Rosalind, and Horatio went into the kitchen. There was a note held to the refrigerator with a magnet, and he took it off, then froze. The details aligned in his mind and dropped into place with a cold, fatal click like a gun hammer.

The note was brief. "Cal, Horatio, I've met a few friends unexpectedly and am going out for the evening. I'll probably be back late. Don't wait up for me." It was the spacing that chilled Horatio, the painfully wide, exaggerated gaps at met a few friends. A flat-out lie, written by someone who wasn't used to lying.

Horatio wheeled around. "Calleigh!" His tone brought her instantly, and she came down the hall with Rosalind only half dressed tucked under one arm.

"What is it, Horatio?"

He passed the note to her, and she read it, then looked back at him, alarmed more by his attitude than the words. She saw nothing strange in them. "The spacing. It's a lie, Cal. He's not out with friends, but I know exactly what he is doing."

"What? What's wrong, Horatio?"

"He's setting himself up as bait so he can take down that killer."

Calleigh's eyes widened. "Why would he do something as idiotic as that?"

"To prove he isn't a coward. Look, I'll explain later, but I've got to find him before she does. Stay here with Rosalind, okay? If it weren't for her, we could divide and conquer, but Alexx and Jonathan are tied up tonight."

Calleigh still didn't follow his reasoning, but she trusted him. "Okay, Horatio. Let me know when you find him."

"I will." He was out the door almost before he finished the words. Rosalind stared after him, then looked back at her mother, puzzled, and gave a questioning sound.

"I don't know, Angel. I don't totally understand him sometimes, either. But he knows what he's doing." Calleigh was sure on that point, at least. She hoped Peter knew what he was doing as well.

(H/C)

Peter sat in the corner of the bar at a table, slowly nursing his beer, only taking tiny sips. His mind was hyperalert, even while his body had a studied, relaxed slouch. Any woman who entered the bar was the object of his immediate attention. The women noticed, too. Two had come over to inquire about that empty seat at the table with him, and he hadn't sprung his prepared pick-up line on either one, remembering what Horatio had said. They were both too tall. He was so busy looking at the women that men escaped his notice entirely, and he nearly jumped out of his chair as the hand seized his shoulder with a painful grasp. He turned, and his protest died unspoken at the expression. Horatio dropped smoothly into that empty seat next to him, and the laser eyes drilled painfully into Peter. He had never seen his brother-in-law truly angry before, much less been the object of it. His throat was suddenly dry, and he fumbled for his beer and took a swallow of it.

Horatio's voice was dripping icicles, sharp, pointed, and deadly. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

And Peter, having already had one uncomfortable conversation earlier today, prepared himself for a worse one.


	6. More Deadly 6

"Serial killers are suspicious folk, even before police are watching them." Helen Morrison, M.D., My Life among the Serial Killers

(H/C)

Peter stared at the table. What the hell did he think he was doing? Two hours ago, it had made sense.

Horatio let the silence lengthen, then pulled out his cell phone. "Cal, I've found him. Everything's okay. We're going to be a while, though. I think it's time Peter and I had a conversation. Great. Tell Rosalind goodnight for me." He snapped the phone shut, then focused on Peter again. He was still angry, and it showed, but his voice to Calleigh had been perfectly mild. Again, Peter was caught scrambling mentally, trying to fit this into his picture of marriage. His father had always gotten angry like a volcano erupting. No matter what had annoyed him in the first place, the lava burned the entire landscape around him. Horatio spoke again, still icily polite. "Do you really think that getting yourself killed would help?"

Sudden doubt made Peter defensive. "I wouldn't have gotten killed."

"What were you going to do?" Horatio sounded honestly curious. If it weren't for those eyes, they might have been discussing the weather.

"As soon as I knew it was her, I'd slip away, go to the bathroom or something, and call the police."

"And how would you know it was her? What do you think a serial killer looks like?"

"Out of place. Weird. Evil somehow. I don't know, but I think I could spot her."

"Ted Bundy was described as quite charming by several women. John Wayne Gacy did community service and was very popular. It's not like they wear a scarlet K on their chests. The worst one I ever knew was one of the most innocuous-appearing men you could imagine." Horatio shuddered slightly, remembering Stewart Otis, and Peter noticed.

"Was that the one who took you and Cal prisoner?"

"Yes. Believe me, Peter, if you had run into him in the street, you would have never guessed. I agree, there ought to be a visible mark somehow with something that twisted, but most of the time, there isn't." A waitress came over at that point, and Horatio ordered coffee. He turned back to Peter to find him staring at a group of women who had just entered. "Stop that! Trade chairs with me." The force of his will seemed to take control of Peter's legs, pulling him to his feet, and the change in seats was accomplished while Peter was still gathering a protest. Now Horatio was the one facing the door squarely, while Peter was at an angle to it. "You'd make a lousy undercover cop, Peter. You're too keyed up, too obviously watching. If she did walk in here, she'd never approach you while you're staring at the door like that. She'd know something was wrong, and killers are suspicious. They have to be, to stay on the loose." Horatio's coffee arrived, and he took a sip of it, then faced Peter again. Courteous, deadly fire. He was still angry. "You do realize, don't you, that you are the only positive link Calleigh has to her biological family?"

Peter hadn't thought of that. He suddenly realized that a good bit of Horatio's anger with him was at the possibility that Calleigh might have been hurt. "I wasn't thinking about it that way."

"Think about it now. If you got killed, there's just your mother, unless Mark reappears after decades. That's all the family she'd have left, one in a perpetual drunken fantasy world and one MIA."

Peter shuddered at the thought. "Sorry. Really, Horatio." He took another swallow of his beer.

Horatio eyed him, and the anger dimmed a little. "So, do you want to talk about it?"

"About what?" Peter said innocently. Horatio didn't even respond. "No," Peter added finally, bracing for an argument.

"Fine, then I'll talk. You listen. I know what you're trying to do here, but it's still being a coward. Taking stupid risks and still avoiding commitment won't lift you in her eyes, Peter."

Peter jumped. "How did you know about her? Come to think of it, how did you know what I was doing tonight anyway?"

"Because I used to be you. For years, I loved Calleigh, and I was afraid to show it, afraid she'd get hurt. I thought I could never have a successful relationship with any woman."

"Why?" Peter could see no fatal flaws in Horatio. His own hesitations made sense, but this man had everything going for him.

Horatio looked away from him for a moment, staring into his coffee. When he finally spoke, his voice was even softer. The anger had burned out of the eyes, replaced by understanding and remembered pain. "Every person I have ever loved in my life before Calleigh died violently."

Peter stared at him. "All of them?" Horatio nodded. Peter suddenly felt even smaller than he was physically. Compared to that level of repeated experience, mere genetics seemed like nothing. "How did you ever get up the courage to go for Calleigh?"

"For years, I didn't. I even tried to prove to myself that I wasn't a coward, tried to prove it to her, just like you're doing. We had a sniper once who we knew was targeting an area, and while Calleigh and the SWAT team were going to the top of the building he was on, I made myself bait to keep him occupied. I told myself at the time that someone had to, that the wind conditions from the police helicopter would prevent his shot. I told myself a lot of things. I knew why I did it, though. Along with everything else, I wanted her to notice me, and she did, but Peter, I still felt like a coward. Even though I really thought there was a jinx, part of me wondered if that wasn't just my excuse to avoid pain."

Peter nodded. He understood that perfectly. "So what changed things?"

"Calleigh. She was always there, every day, forcing me to keep looking at what I was afraid to reach for. I finally. . ." Horatio's voice stumbled to a halt for the first time, and he obviously edited his thoughts through several rough drafts before he continued. Peter didn't say anything. The man was surrendering privacy to make a point already. "Finally, I told everything to Calleigh. At least, I told her what she hadn't worked out, and she guessed a good bit on her own."

Peter leaned forward, as intent as if he didn't know the ending. "What did she do?"

"She helped me deal with it." A simple sentence with a world of fond memory and, even now, wonder behind the tone. "Peter, have you talked to . . . what is her name, anyway?"

Peter dropped the charade. Obviously, Horatio knew everything. "Becky." He savored the tone almost unwillingly, and Horatio smiled.

"Tell me about her."

Peter's eyes went distant, conjuring up a well-known face, and he smiled at the thought. "She's beautiful. Physically, but her personality, too. Everything. She makes me feel alive. It's almost like drinking, but it's better. No hangovers." He grinned at his brother-in-law. "She's the most caring person I've ever known, but she's determined, too. She called me today and told me that unless I was ready to stop beating around the bush and make a commitment, she didn't want to see me again."

Horatio gave him a sympathetic smile. "And that's why you came down to this bar tonight. It wouldn't work, Peter. Even if everything went perfectly, if you caught the killer, the shock would wear off on her end, and you'd still feel like a fraud on yours. Risking death is easy, Peter. It doesn't take half as much courage as risking your heart does. Have you ever told Becky about your family? In detail, I mean."

Peter shook his head. "I avoid the subject."

"Let me ask you this. Suppose it was possible, that you aren't genetically doomed to failed relationships. If there was a chance that it could work out for the two of you, could you ever forgive yourself for letting that opportunity slip away?"

It was Peter's turn to study his drink. He still wasn't sure it was possible. But if it was . . . He looked back up to Horatio. "No," he said, his voice suddenly firm. "But what if she deserves more than me?"

"Why don't you let her be the judge of that? I'm still amazed Calleigh picked me. Loving her was easy, but for her to love me back is incredible."

Peter's smile faded abruptly. "But she hung up on me this afternoon. She doesn't want to see me."

"You're wrong. She just doesn't want to see half of you. All or nothing. You know what I'd do if I were you, Peter?"

"What?"

"I'd catch the next plane out of Miami and cancel the rest of vacation. Show up on her doorstep at whatever hour you get in, even if it's the middle of the night. Flowers might help if you could find some quickly, but show up there, unexpectedly, and tell her you want to talk about your family. I guarantee she won't kick you out."

Peter considered it, then slowly started to smile at the thought. "If she does and wants me totally out of her life, can I move down to Miami?"

"I'll help you find a job. You have to go back and try first, though."

Peter suddenly felt more relaxed than he had in six months. "Thank you, Horatio. I think Calleigh has it made."

Horatio smiled at him. "I know I do." His eyes suddenly shifted gears so fast that Peter was startled, and while he was still opening his mouth to ask, Horatio darted out of the chair with the speed of a striking cobra, swept through the crowd, and was gone out the bar door.

Horatio had been sitting there talking to Peter, his mind automatically on some level assessing the people who entered the bar. It wasn't that he had assumed Peter's self-assigned task of the evening, just the unconscious reaction of a cop to any public situation, always keeping one eye patrolling for any possible trouble. The woman who entered hadn't caught his eye specifically at first. She had paused inside the door, sweeping the bar with a casual glance like someone looking for a friend. When her eyes met Peter's profile, she had tightened up ever so slightly, the casualness giving way to clinical assessment, and that was what had caught Horatio's attention. Unfortunately, the woman had felt the intensity coming to bear on her. She looked past Peter's profile to meet Horatio's eyes directly, and she had visibly jumped, then whirled, no longer casual, and bolted. Horatio reacted as quickly, but she had a 30-foot start on him, and there were people between him and the door. As he bolted into the parking lot, her car was peeling rubber on its way out. He pulled out his gun while mentally scanning the area. No pedestrians at the moment, a clear sight-line to his target, even if the lighting was bad. He aimed and fired.

The woman's inexperience with getaway driving saved her. She turned out of the parking lot too quickly, and the car skidded, causing Horatio's shot to skip off the trunk in a shower of sparks instead of hit the vehicle squarely. He had allowed for evasive action but not for incompetence. She jerked the wheel, and the car reluctantly came back under control, leaping down the street as she slammed the accelerator to the floor. Horatio raised his gun for another shot, then brought it down unfired as a group of drunks lurched along the sidewalk beside the fleeing car. Too risky a shot in the dark, and she hadn't turned her lights on. His mind replayed that shower of sparks. Maybe the bullet could still reach its target by way of the CSI labs. He fetched the flashlight and tweezers from the Hummer and turned back to find Peter standing in the lot uncertainly. "What happened? I heard a shot."

"Your bait worked, actually. That was her. Unfortunately, she recognized me. Probably comes from watching Travis Fox with his interviews." He crossed the street to the wall of the building on the other side. "I've got to find that bullet. It could be important."

"Did it hit the car?"

"Skipped off it. She lost control and ruined the shot, but it definitely hit metal. If it picked up paint, we can narrow down cars from that. I only got a glimpse, and she didn't turn her lights on, but it was some kind of a small sedan. An Escort, maybe." He played the flashlight over the building wall, then gave a soft sound of triumph. "There it is." He snapped on latex gloves and carefully worked the bullet back out of the wall. He held it out under the circle of the flashlight, and he and Peter both stared at the paint burned into the side of the bullet. Blue paint. "Got you," Horatio said softly.

(H/C)

Calleigh was curled up on the couch, reading a book or at least holding one. The Hummer finally swung into the driveway, but before she could reach the door, it pulled out again. She opened the door to find only Peter, not Horatio. Her brother's eyes were alive with excitement, but he was also more relaxed than he had been yet at any point of the visit. "Horatio went down to CSI. He had a bullet to log, but he said you can process it in the morning. He also called the police artist, and he's meeting her tonight. He wants that sketch out as soon as possible. Could you take me to the airport, Cal? I know it's the middle of the night, but I've got to catch the next flight back to Virginia."

Calleigh sifted through all of that, remarkably fitting it together. "Horatio got a shot at the killer?"

"At her car, but it skipped. Picked up some paint, though." Calleigh's fingers twitched, reaching for the bullet already, but of course, she couldn't do it tonight. There was Rosalind, after all.

"He got a look at her?"

"Yes. Only for a split second, but he was looking straight at her. She recognized him, and she ran."

"Damn Travis Fox," Calleigh muttered.

"Yeah, that's about what he said. He says he can give a good description of her, though. I sure couldn't. It all happened so fast."

"If Horatio saw her clearly, even for half a second, he's got a solid mental picture. Did you say you were leaving?"

"Yes. I've got to get back to Norfolk to talk to someone. Is Rosalind already asleep?"

"Doesn't matter. I'll get her up while you grab your suitcase. We can't make you late to show up on her doorstep."

"How did you . . ."

"Where else would you go first thing after catching a flight back in the middle of the night?" Calleigh went back to the nursery, and Peter started gathering his things and shoving them any which way into his suitcase. "What's her name, Peter?" Calleigh called to him as she picked up Rosalind.

"Becky."

"I hope I get to meet her someday."

Peter emerged with his suitcase. "I hope you do, too. You and Horatio both. Calleigh, I'm so happy for you. Horatio is incredible."

"Believe me, I've noticed." She gave him a one-armed hug as they stood in the hall. "Good luck, Peter."

"Thanks, Cal." Rosalind squirmed, trapped between them, and Peter reached out to touch her. "Bye, Rosalind. I hope you realize how lucky you are."

Calleigh shook her head. "I hope it's several years before she has to."

(H/C)

Horatio entered Ballistics, and Calleigh turned from the computer. "This paint was used on Ford Escorts and Tauruses between 1999 and 2003."

"I thought it might be an Escort, but it was dark." He held out a copy of the police artist's drawing. "This, now, I'm sure of. We've distributed it everywhere. It's only a matter of time, now." He frowned slightly. "She's definitely still hunting, though. It was her reaction to Peter that made me notice her. I hope no one else has to die."

Calleigh gave him an encouraging smile. "Hey, we're making progress. Last night moved us way up on this case. We've even got a witness to describe her who isn't going to change his story five times or forget details." Horatio relaxed a bit and returned the smile. "So what do we do while we're waiting, Handsome?" Simply waiting on a case was never an option with Horatio. He always had to be trying for progress.

"Since we have a description now, plus a make on the car, you and I are going to try the DMV database. We're looking for Escorts or Tauruses registered to women, and then we can pull the driver's license info to check the descriptions. You start at A, and I'll start at N. Of course, her last name probably begins with Z. Still, it's trying something new."

"I won't think of it as tedious, believe me," Calleigh remarked. "After all, we could be watching Travis Fox."

(H/C)

"If he weren't dead, I'd kill him myself," Speed muttered, staring at Fox's frozen but still smiling image on the screen.

"I'd join you," said Eric. "Maybe we could each hold one end of a rope and strangle him. No, too easy." He thought for a minute. "Got it. We could tie him up so he couldn't move, then let him slowly starve to death in a room that had his own broadcasts piped into it 24/7. He could die watching himself, and he could never turn it off."

Speed nodded. "That sounds about right." The computer beeped, and they both grew instantly serious. "Nope, this one moved to Minnesota last year." He crossed off the name, and they both turned back to the screen, then hesitated, prolonging the inevitable. It was Eric who finally reached for the control, releasing the frozen reporter on the screen into action.

"This is Travis Fox with KMIA." Eric and Speed sighed in unison. "This afternoon, an 8-year-old girl was killed during a gang chase. Apparently, one gang was fleeing from another, with shots being fired, and the child abruptly ran out into the street and was hit by one of the cars. And so, another young life is tragically snuffed out before its time. Unfortunately, to gangs, a child is expendable. One must wonder, though, why an 8-year-old girl ran out into the street in the first place, especially with shots sounding. Perhaps her mother had not taught her the dangers of that. Why she ran out makes no difference anymore, though. Rest in peace, Angie Carpenter. Ah, and here comes a neighbor to comfort the grief-stricken mother. Before you go inside, can we get a statement, please?"

Eric hit pause, and Fox froze again. He wished the reporter had come with a remote control in real life.

Speed shook his head. "What a jerk."

Eric nodded. "Can you imagine calling a kid expendable? Or wondering whether her mother was at fault, either. It wasn't her mother's fault that a gang chase ran down her street." He turned to the computer. "Angie Carpenter, let's see. That broadcast was from 14 months ago." He entered the date and quickly found the police report. "Okay, it doesn't mention a father. Mother is Sylvia Carpenter. She could be single. Here's the address." He jotted it down.

Speed was on the DMV database. "Sylvia Carpenter. There's six of them in Miami, but none with that address. Nope, first one is in her 60s. Second one is 19. Third one. . ." Speed stuttered to a stop as the copy of her driver's license info came up. "Gimme H's drawing, Eric." Eric quickly found it and handed it over, and they both looked from it to the screen and back. Speed found his voice. "33 years old. Five feet three inches tall. Address on the license is a post office box." He held the drawing up beside the computer screen, and they checked it again, then looked at each other in triumph. "We've got her."

Eric reached out and snapped the video equipment off, and Fox faded into a blank, black screen. "We've got her. Let's go find H."


	7. More Deadly 7

A/N: To Nath, Geena, and any other writers who have had these delectable swimming pool scenes recently, the final scene of More Deadly is pure coincidence, not plagiarism. This story has actually been finished for several months; I just hadn't had time to write it down and post it. The scene was formed before I had read all of yours. We can never have too many swimming pool scenes, though. H in a swimming pool. :: swoon :: But first, we've got a case to finish up. Thanks to everyone who read this one.

(H/C)

"He will meet no suave discussion but the instant, white-hot, wild,

Wakened female of the species warring."

Rudyard Kipling, The Female of the Species

(H/C)

They came in cautiously, discretely, leaving the cars over a block away. The neighborhood was beautifully landscaped with trees and shrubbery. Very convenient shrubbery, from the point of view of the police. They huddled behind the hedge alongside the driveway now, outlining their careful plan of attack. Horatio hadn't forgotten the profiler's warning. Tripp was there with two other cops. From CSI, Eric and Speed had come along with Horatio and Calleigh. They had insisted that three and a half days straight of watching Travis Fox had earned them the right to be there, and Horatio had to concede the point.

Tripp stared at the house through a gap in the leaves. "Wish we could see in that garage. No sign of anybody."

"From all indications, she lives alone," Horatio said. "I haven't seen any movement, either. Calleigh?"

Calleigh had binoculars. "Nothing. Nice rooms, what I can see through the curtains, but no person."

"Doesn't mean she's not there," Eric pointed out.

"Let's find out, shall we?" Horatio turned to the two other cops. "You work your way around to the back door. Five minutes from now, we'll go in. I've got 4:00 on the nose." They all checked watches, and the two cops disappeared around a corner of the hedge. The others worked their way up as close as they could get to the front door before breaking cover, then darted across to flatten themselves against the house, avoiding the windows, as they approached the front door. If the woman was inside, she would have had to look at just the right second to see them. Eric and Speed automatically held back a little – the other three were much better shots. Tripp took up position on one side of the door, Horatio and Calleigh together on the other. Horatio's eyes were glued to his watch as the hand ticked down the final seconds. He nodded, and Tripp burst into action.

"Miami-Dade PD!" They crashed into the house and were met by silence, except from the two cops entering from the other side. Not leaving it to chance, they started carefully checking each room, guns ready. Nothing.

The two other officers came back down the long hall, meeting Horatio, Tripp, and Calleigh in the middle of the living room. "All clear back there," one of them said.

"She isn't here," Eric said, stating the obvious.

"The car is, though." Speed had found the garage with the blue Escort parked precisely in the center. He put his gun up and pulled on gloves, already starting to think of processing the car. Eric joined him.

Tripp jerked his head at the cops. "You two, keep watch. Front and back door. She'll be back. Probably took a walk. Don't even think of getting distracted." They each took up their stations at the windows nearest the front and back doors, concealed in the curtains where the woman would not see them on her return. The rest cautiously started to explore the house, looking at the details now that they were satisfied it was unoccupied. Speed and Eric stayed in the garage with the car that had hauled four bodies.

Calleigh started in the kitchen. "Horatio." He was there before she finished speaking his name. "Look at this." The kitchen was impeccably kept, as was every other room, but on the table, there was a plate with two chocolate chip cookies on it next to a glass of milk. Horatio sniffed the milk.

"It isn't spoiled, but it's not really cold anymore. Been there an hour or so but not all day. Those look like fresh homemade cookies, too."

Calleigh followed his thoughts. "The flour. This is creepy, Horatio. Do you think she's expecting her daughter to just come home like she used to?"

"I doubt it." Horatio nodded toward a picture on the wall of a pixie-faced girl with slightly wary eyes contradicting the smile. The frame of the picture had a black ribbon fastened around it. "She knows she's dead. Maybe she's just trying to keep the memory alive." He tilted his head, studying the photo. "Look at that child, Calleigh. Look at her eyes. What do you see?"

Calleigh looked more closely and then jumped suddenly as the elusive memory of where she'd seen that expression pinned itself down. A golden-haired child staring at herself in the mirror, with the smile that tells the world she's fine and the eyes that admit she is not. "Horatio, I think she was being abused somehow."

Horatio slipped his arm around her and gave her a quick, steadying squeeze. "I agree. After that car hit her, superficial injuries might have been assigned to the same cause on the autopsy, especially since they knew what killed her before starting. Easy to get careless and assume."

Calleigh had herself firmly rooted back in the present now. "Too bad Alexx didn't do that one."

"Then again, it might not have been physical. There are other kinds of abuse. Travis Fox wondered why she ran out into the street. An 8-year-old should have known better. Maybe she was running from something. If the mother really was to blame, that could have convinced her Fox had to die."

Calleigh nodded. "Deny the truth by removing the accuser."

Tripp's voice came from down the hall. "H, come look at this."

Horatio took one glance at the sentinel standing guard by the back door, which led into the kitchen. "Keep your eyes open," he reminded, and the man nodded. Horatio and Calleigh started together down the long hall and found Tripp in a small side room, obviously a spare bedroom once. Now, it had all furniture removed, and in one corner on the floor was a large black roll of landscape plastic. Next to it was a neat assortment of cigarette lighters of various types. On the wall was a 16 x 20 framed picture of Angie, and again, the frame was trimmed in black.

"Eric," Horatio called. Eric appeared behind them.

"H, that car is a goldmine. We're just starting, and we've found a few hairs caught in the headrest, some skin in the floorboard sloughed off from a burn, not to mention the groove from your bullet. This is definitely the right woman."

"We'd just come to that conclusion." Horatio stepped back to let Eric see in the room. "She put the bodies on the plastic and worked them in here. That's a 120-watt bulb. Start getting pictures of this. Speed can keep working on the car." He walked back himself to check the guard at the front door, who was the picture of alert duty. The window gave a clear view of the driveway and front yard. No one was in sight. "Where is she?" Horatio asked himself out loud.

Calleigh had turned away from the obvious mutilation room and explored further. At the end of the hall was the enormous master bedroom on one side and obviously Angie's bedroom directly across from it. Even Angie's room was huge, especially by 8-year-old standards, and she had had her own elaborate stereo and television. No lack of money anywhere in this house. "Look at this, Horatio. She's laid clothes out here on the bed for her." Horatio came up the hall to join her, studying the room. The same picture lined in black was there, too. It seemed to be in every room at least once. Calleigh shook her head. "It's like she's still pretending she's alive. At least, I hope it's pretending."

"Psychiatrists are going to earn their pay with this one. She's way too organized and premeditating to be insane, though. I saw her last night. Absolutely calculating eyes, intelligent, definitely fully there. She had the sense to run, too."

"This is strange." Calleigh had opened the miniature roll-top desk to reveal a computer. "Didn't we decide she didn't have a computer?"

Horatio came across to kneel in front of the CPU. "I'll admit, I thought she didn't have one. Otherwise, why use handwritten notes?" He carefully dusted the front. "No fingerprints on the power button or the disk drives. She doesn't use this. Angie probably liked computers, so it must be another monument to her memory." He considered for a minute. "Which might make what's on here interesting. I wonder if Angie kept a diary." He hit power, and the computer came to life with a soft beep. Horatio sat down, folding his long legs with some difficulty under the child-sized desk.

Calleigh had gone across to the closet and opened it. It was a walk-in closet with clothes neatly hung on the sides, stuffed animals in a net overhead, and boxes on a shelf at the back. "These clothes aren't dusty at all, Horatio. I swear, she keeps them washed."

Horatio didn't answer, caught up in exploring Angie's young world. The computer had the usual games on it, but he was more interested in the word processing program. He opened it, checked the list of documents, and instantly spotted a file unimaginatively named 'my diary.' He opened it and was swept instantly into the mind of a confused child whose mother bought her everything, smothered her with attention, and also 'played new games,' as Angie had put it. He read the entries with growing disgust and pity. Behind him, Calleigh explored the items on the shelf at the back of the closet.

A gasp from the door startled both of them. Horatio turned to face Sylvia Carpenter, and her eyes traveled from his badge to the computer. She realized instantly that the cops had caught up with her, but that fact paled for the moment next to another. Angie's computer, which had not been turned on since her death, was being used by a man. In a split second, fury flooded over her, and she charged. Horatio was at a disadvantage sitting down and still half pinned by the desk, but before her wild surge reached him, the other person in the room slid smoothly into action. Calleigh fired from the closet door, aiming for the knees, a shot designed to bring her down but not kill her. The bullet shattered the woman's knee, and her wild charge collapsed as her leg crumpled under her. She fell, her hands still reaching for Horatio, fingers extended futilely like claws. He stood and looked down at the open carpet still between them, then turned to Calleigh. "Thanks," he said simply, but his eyes said more.

"You're welcome," she replied. The silence of the house had been shattered by the gunshot, and now a flurry of activity replaced the echoes. Tripp appeared at the door, gun drawn, and quickly scanned the situation.

"Everybody okay?"

"Thanks to Calleigh. We'll need an ambulance for the killer, though."

"How the hell did she get in here?" He realized that they couldn't answer him and stalked down the hall, shouting for the two officers who had supposedly been guarding the doors.

Horatio knelt next to the Black Widow, and she made a wild grab for him as he turned her over. He dodged, admiring Calleigh's shooting at the same time. The woman wasn't in any danger, but she wasn't going anywhere on her own. On her back now, her eyes met his with fury but full intelligence behind it. Unable to reach him physically, she struck verbally, railing, cursing him and all his sex. Horatio stood silently watching her, but remembering the little he had read of the diary, he could not find pity. Calleigh came up beside him, their bodies touching, and stood there taking the verbal onslaught with him until the ambulance arrived.

(H/C)

Horatio closed the third door into the house, the side door that entered the master bedroom, and stared at it. The interior of the door was a full-length mirror. It blended almost perfectly into the décor. Only the small knob gave it away. "I should have checked in here myself," he said softly.

Calleigh put a hand on his shoulder. "They said they had cleared it. You had no reason to doubt them. That's really hard to spot even knowing it's there."

"Still, I should have checked the whole house, made sure the scene was secure."

"Look at it this way. They're the ones who went around to find the other exits from the outside. They should have checked the fourth side of the house, too, not just the one they walked around. It's easily visible from outside, and they never looked at that end."

"That doesn't cancel my mistake," he insisted. "With the team in here, I should have checked every inch of it myself." He wasn't thinking that he had come closer to being hurt himself than anyone else on the team.

She kissed him. "Horatio, I hate to say it, but how do you know you would have spotted that door from the inside on a quick scan? It's designed to blend in." Of course, she knew he would have spotted it, but he didn't consider his perception unusual. "They missed it. You might have, too. And nobody was hurt. Everything's okay."

His thoughts shifted. "Thanks to you. Have I ever told you how much I admire your shooting?"

"I think it's been mentioned," she laughed.

He relaxed enough to smile at her. "Among your many other skills," he said silkily, then instantly dropped back into professional mode, smoothly switching gears. "Now that we know she's in custody, let's really start processing this place." They fanned out in silent teamwork, starting around the room, each knowing the direction the other would take without words. Calleigh picked up a book from the nightstand. The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie.

"Horatio," she said. He turned, and she held up the book. He nodded, seeing it purely as evidence.

"Nice work, Cal. Bet her fingerprints are all over that."

Calleigh smiled to herself as she tucked the book into an evidence envelope and logged it. She often thought that Horatio's intuition and ability to fit seemingly unconnected things seamlessly together were among CSI's best weapons. Shooting a gun at a target, even a moving one, at a range of only ten feet was easy in comparison. He, of course, would never see it that way. He probably didn't even remember that the ABC theory had been his brainstorm in the first place. His mind earned her admiration, but it was his heart that added her love. She realized that she was standing there just watching him and started working again, continuing around the room in her direction, knowing that without conscious effort, they would meet precisely in the middle.

(H/C)

The psychiatrist sat in one of the chairs in front of Horatio's desk, Calleigh in the other. "This is one of those tough cases that I can understand but not condone. Basically, her mother died when she was a young girl. Her father raised her alone. He was wealthy, and he bought her everything, but he also was violent and sexually abused her. He also, incidentally, looked quite a bit like Travis Fox. He died just after she turned 21, and she was left rich enough that she didn't have to work. She dabbled in this and that, tried to write and paint but had no talent for it. She volunteered some. Then, she was raped and got pregnant from it. Instead of getting an abortion, she decided to devote her life to the child, give her happiness. She'd never found a purpose in life, and she thought she saw one there, raising a family without a man's help. She hates all men."

"I got that impression," Horatio said, remembering that ten-minute verbal tirade while the ambulance was coming.

"So she tried to be with Angie 24 hours a day, absolutely smothering her in love. She'd never had a normal sexual life herself, though, and she gradually started experimenting on her daughter. It's clear from the diary that Angie felt absolutely choked by her mother's attentions, even the non sexual ones. There's no entry for the day Angie died, but I imagine something pushed her over the edge. She just couldn't face it anymore, not at that minute, and she ran. Her mother was behind her, by the way, coming across the yard. She saw her get hit by the car. Later that evening, she was flipping through the channels, trying to distract herself, and happened to see Travis Fox. He looked like her father, anyway, and his accusing her of fault in front of all Miami was too much. She couldn't get it out of her mind. She thought killing him would stop the accusations in her head. Somehow, it became his fault, and her father's fault by extension. She's plotted this for almost a year. Intelligent enough to go slowly and work out a smokescreen."

"She wasn't going to stop, though," Horatio stated.

"No. She'd discovered the thrill of it. Outwitting men, then killing them, then attacking their manhood. To her, any man, especially any man who resembled her father, deserved it, and she was doing society a service. I don't think she would have ever stopped voluntarily."

"What about the cookies and milk?" Calleigh asked. "Why did she keep doing things for Angie if she knew Angie was dead?"

"Angie had been her whole life for eight years. She didn't know anything else, and she didn't have to work for money. It probably would have been better if she'd had a job, something to occupy her time. She knew Angie kept a diary, incidentally, but she never read it. She never turned on the computer, even after Angie's death. I think she wanted to convince herself that she had really been good to her daughter, and she was afraid of what Angie might have written. She kept saying over and over how much she really loved Angie and what a good life she gave her. She never once hit her, not like her father had done. To her, that was the definition of a good childhood."

Horatio shook his head, reluctant pity in his eyes. "Like you said, we can understand it, but we can't condone it. Did she tell you all of this?"

"Most of it, although it took several hours. Most serial killers, once they're caught, don't deny their crimes. I also read Angie's diary. Of course, the defense will find some expert witnesses who will say she's absolutely crazy."

Horatio nodded. "That's the only possible defense. We've got a mountain of physical evidence from the house, the car, and the gun, not to mention her handwriting and fingerprints. Four murders. Insanity is her only chance to escape the death penalty. You agree that she's sane?"

"Yes," the psychiatrist replied. "There's too much premeditation, too much effort to cover her tracks. She knew what she was doing, and she knew it was wrong." She stood and shook hands with both Calleigh and Horatio. "Well, Lieutenant Caine, congratulations on solving this case. It was a difficult one."

Horatio gave her a sad smile. "Just doing my job."

(H/C)

Horatio rolled over in his sleep, reaching for her. The void on the other side of the bed woke him up, and he sat up, listening intently. There was no sound, but his unerring senses found her. He slipped out of bed and padded across the hall to where Calleigh stood in the middle of the nursery, looking at Rosalind in the faint glow of the nightlight. Rosalind was sound asleep with her fingers in her mouth. "You okay?" Horatio asked, sliding his arms around her to lock together over her stomach.

Calleigh nodded, leaning back against his warm, reassuring presence. "I was having a dream about Dad."

"I'm sorry." He kissed the back of her head. "You should have woken me up. I should have woken up anyway."

"You did wake up, Horatio. I haven't been here two minutes." They both watched Rosalind sleep for a minute. "I just wanted to see her. Well, first, I wanted to see you, but you weren't hard to find." Calleigh shivered slightly, and he ran his hands up and down her bare arms. "How could she do that to her daughter, Horatio? That's what I don't understand. Her background didn't mean that she couldn't break the cycle."

He pulled her around to face him in the dim light. "I don't know. I can't understand it, either. Maybe Angie would have broken it, if she had lived. She would have had her chance, too." Calleigh buried herself against his strong chest, listening to his heart. The past was over for her. She knew that, but her heart still hurt for those who couldn't manage to shake off the chains and claim their right to their own lives, not with anger but with pure resolution. Or those who didn't live long enough to have that chance, like Angie.

Horatio held her tightly, her hair flowing over his arms. His own eyes looked over her head to Rosalind. He didn't say anything until he felt Calleigh start to relax. When he did speak, his smooth, warm voice seemed to reach even Rosalind. She didn't wake up, but she gave a tiny murmur and fell even deeper into secure dreams. "I've been thinking, Cal, about my question the other night. I think I have the answer."

As a distraction, it was effective. "What question?" she murmured into his chest.

"What's going on in the city tonight?"

She straightened up enough to face him. "You have the answer? Besides sleep, that is. I gave you that one."

His eyes gleamed in the dimly-lit room. "People are killing each other, and people are healing each other. They're hurting, and they're giving. There's pain, and joy, and tears. Anger in some places. Someone is giving birth, right now, even while someone else is dying. Life, Calleigh. That's what's going on in the city tonight, with all its beauty and ugliness. But I truly believe more people out there are loving than are killing."

Her answering kiss took his breath away.

(H/C)

Angie Carpenter.

Calleigh traced the inscribed words in the granite with her hand, then touched the too-close dates beneath. She held a single rose in her other hand. White, for innocence. She knelt and placed it on the grave. "You don't know me, Angie, but I just wanted to tell you something. Your mother was wrong. It wasn't your fault; it was hers. I wanted you to know that you could have been happy. Someday, if you'd gotten a little older, you would have had the choice of how to face life, no matter what anyone else did. I wanted to tell you, if you hadn't died, she couldn't have ruined your whole life for you. She could make it harder, but you still could have been happy. And there are good people in the world. People worth trusting." Calleigh stood and looked down at the grave, totally covered by grass at this point, then back at the name. There was an angel inscribed on the tombstone beside it. "I'm sorry you never had that opportunity. I guess you are happy now, though, aren't you?" She stood there for another minute, then turned and walked away, leaving the white rose lying on the grass.

(H/C)

"I knew this fence was a good idea." Horatio's voice was a low, sultry hum.

"Multipurpose," Calleigh agreed. She and Horatio were both in the pool, floating on their backs side by side, hands joined. It was September 25, their anniversary, and they had spent most of the day either in the pool or in only one of the deck chairs beside it, securely shielded from the world by the surrounding fence. The phone had been switched off, and they were blissfully alone. Rosalind would be picked up from daycare by Alexx and taken home with her for the night.

Calleigh reached her free hand across and ran it along Horatio's stomach, feeling the firm muscles ripple beneath her touch. "Horatio."

"Hmmm?" It was as much a purr as a response.

"Thank you. For everything."

He turned his head to face her. "Thank you, Cal. This last two years have been incredible. I wouldn't trade anything."

Calleigh considered that. "I might trade some of it."

He laughed. "I don't know. I'd be afraid to start taking things out. Might pull up a few good moments along with the bad ones."

"Couldn't have that, could we? I guess you're right, as always."

"Hardly always. One thing I know I'm right about, though."

"What's that?"

"You have the most beautiful hair in the world." He rolled over, fanning his fingers through it, loving the feel of it, even wet.

The sun suddenly turned shy, ducking behind a fast-approaching dark cloud, and Calleigh stared up at the sky. "I think we're about to finally get some rain." It had been threatening to rain off and on all day.

"Good."

"Good?"

"We needed a storm for the occasion. I proposed to you in a storm, remember?"

Her answer wasn't verbal, and it ended with both of them going under unexpectedly and coming up sputtering. Horatio laughed. "I think we either need to go to the shallow end or get back out. We're going to drown right here. Too many other things to think about to remember to keep my head above water."

Together, they paddled over to the ladder and climbed out, landing with a thud together on their deck chair just as the rain started. It poured down, a steady, soaking rain, refreshing the city. Already saturated with love, neither Horatio nor Calleigh noticed.

(H/C)

Next on CSI Miami: Fearful Symmetry: "Photo Finish." Much more than racing is going on at Gulfstream Park.


End file.
